Last week Fed vice-chair Stanley Fischer announced that he will leave the board of governors next month for personal reasons and eight months before his term was to expire. The timing opens up an unprecedented fourth vacancy on the Fed board of governors. In addition, Chair Janet Yellen may not be reappointed when her term ends in February based on her stated aversion to rolling back financial-crisis-instigated bank regulations.
This could open up 5 of 7 governor seats to be filled by new Trump picks in 2018: a record amount of members in flux at one time. See: Trump handed rare opportunity to reshape Federal Reserve.
Trump will probably end up picking from the usual add-debt and stir advocates, but for a finance sector used to heavily influencing and populating its own regulators, the number of moving parts here is unsettling. Especially since finance-friendly monetary policy has been so critical to the sector’s profits and influence for the past three decades. They certainly won’t want true reformers in the mix.
Stanley Fischer is resigning and Danielle DiMartino Booth is back to tell us what that means for the Fed! Here is a direct video link.
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