There may be plenty of Bernanke-haters out there but that doesn’t mean he won’t get approval from the U.S. senate to continue as Fed Chairman.
President Obama’s nomination for a second four years at the helm for Helicopter Ben (a nickname he earned after a 2002 speech where he referred to Milton Friedman’s comments about dropping money from a helicopter) should come before his current term expires on January 31.
There is clearly a noticeable lack of broad-based support, however, enough Senators look like they will be persuaded. After all, there would likely be a huge negative fallout in the financial markets if Bernanke’s nomination gets rejected.
You only have to look back to the stock market’s sharp decline on January 22, when the Senate’s approval of Bernanke temporarily appeared in limbo. It served as an eerie reminder of the very negative response global financial markets had when the House of Representatives shocked investors by initially rejecting the major bailout legislation in the autumn of 2008, notes UBS economist Maury N. Harris.
Support from Senators has not be unconditional. For example, in announcing he would vote for Bernanke after the stock market slumped on January 22, Majority Leader Harry Reid said: “I made it clear that to merit confirmation, Chairman Bernanke must redouble his efforts to ensure families can access the credit they need to buy or keep their home, send their children to college or start a small business. He has assured me he will soon outline plans for making that happen, and I eagerly await them.”
UBS believes that Bernanke’s own sense of history will prompt him to uphold the Fed’s independence and start raising the fed funds rate this year after the job market stabilizes in the second quarter.