Two Federal Reserve Openings Provide One Chance to Counter Trump<br />Mr. Levin has proposed that the federal government should take ownership of the regional reserve banks, and<br />that the selection of regional reserve presidents should be a public process<br />“How monetary policy is considered seems very high-level for many people in the community,<br />but it has a direct impact on how well they may do economically,” Denise Scott, a member of the four-person search committee, said in a video released by the New York Fed that described what it’s looking for in a candidate.<br />The regional bank is responsible for implementing the Fed’s monetary policy decisions — raising or lowering interest rates through the purchase<br />and sale of financial assets — and it oversees many of the nation’s largest financial institutions.<br />“The appointment of the next New York Fed president is the most powerful appointment in America<br />that Donald Trump doesn’t control,” said Marcus Stanley, policy director of Americans for Financial Reform, which lobbies in favor of strong regulation.<br />He added, “While most decisions taken by even a Fed chairman are in the end not make-or-break,<br />most Fed chairs face at least one profoundly consequential decision during their tenure.”<br />The Trump administration has discussed some vice-chairman candidates who could fit the bill, including Lawrence B. Lindsey, a former Fed governor<br />and director of the National Economic Council under President George W. Bush, and Mohamed A. El-Erian, the chief economic adviser at Allianz, who is widely respected as both an investor and a commentator on monetary policy, according to a person who has participated in some of those conversations.<br />The divergent selection processes are an artifact of the Fed’s structure: A board of political appointees in Washington<br />oversees the operations of 12 regional reserve banks, which are privately owned by the commercial banks in each region.
