Plus, all over CNBC with anchors making grumpy faces.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-10-25/ron-and-rand-paul-tag-team-against-janet-yellenAdditionally, if Ron and Rand feel the way they do about the Fed they should just let things play out (seriously, and it seemed like this was the route that Ron Paul was taking.)
Neither of them is going to accomplish anything and Yellen will go through anyways.
Commenter on ZH said it perfectly: "Rand will be painted as an obstructionist nut-job, and 99% of Americans won't have any idea what the issues are with the FED, the debt, Wall Street, Washington, or much of anything else."Additionally, another ZH comment that got a big laugh: "They're wasting valuable printing time. - Mr. Yellen"
Also, what a freaking mess politics has become in this country. Be globally diversified.
Comments
significant possibility for a policy error, the
odds favour betting on lower unemployment
and higher inflation in a Yellen Fed"
Guggenheim/Sott Minard Perpective
http://guggenheimpartners.com/GP/media/pdf/Financial-Times_Helicopter-Ben-Offers-Clues-to-How-a-Yellen-Fed-Would-Look.pdf?utm_source=SilverpopMailing&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=FT Reprint - Yellen Reputation May Spur Premature Taper (2)&spMailingID=7247609&spUserID=NTY4OTI3NjQzNwS2&spJobID=94802839&spReportId=OTQ4MDI4MzkS1
The Rand Paul challenge to the Yellen Fed chief nomination is an ill-conceived political ploy that is doomed to fail. His efforts will devolve to smoke and mirrors without igniting a fire.
Janet Yellen is eminently qualified to hold that position. She has been preparing for that post her entire professional career, from both an educational and a practical experience perspective.
Here is a Link to a Knowledge@Wharton website article that clearly identifies her impressive academic and experience credentials:
http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/janet-yellen-whats-ahead-fed/
She will be immediately confronted by a daunting task. The dual goals of the Fed to control inflation while simultaneously reducing unemployment are incompatible. They demand a balancing act that is impossible to predict. The interactions between these two requirements want to move in counter-directions.
The accumulated economic database suggests that when inflation is high, unemployment is low. This is the controversial Phillips Curve, uncovered by a New Zealand economist (A.W.H. Phillips) in 1958.
Here is a Link to a nice article that summarizes the checkered history of the Phillips Curve:
http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc1/PhillipsCurve.html
The Curve has always been controversial. Data scatter about the original Curve was large. Most economists concluded that it was too simplistic and proposed alternate versions. The Hoover article documents the surviving adaptation.
I am very leery about the predictive capability of this revised representation. It too suffers from much data scatter about the correlation line (see Figure 2 in the reference). It is now known as the Expectations-Augmented Phillips Curve. I have doubts over its reliability as a predictive tool.
For example, it only attempts to correlate a portion of the longitudinal database. The experts feel that there has been an economic divergence that requires a bifurcation of the data starting in 1976. That’s a little unsettling.
Equally unsettling is the form of the updated correlation. The vertical axis is no longer the annual inflation rate; it is now the rate of change of the inflation rate. Mathematically, taking a derivative of a term (inflation rate) magnifies any error in the original formulation. Data scatter for the original formulation was huge so the uncertainty in its derivative is even larger.
I do not conclude that the “improved” Phillips Curve is more trustworthy or more useful as a forecasting tool with regard to inflation-unemployment interactions. The modeling is deeply flawed and does not inspire confidence.
Indeed, Janet Yellen has a daunting challenge. She will become the next Fed chief. I wish her luck. She will need a ton of it.
Best Regards.
I don't think one needs to use the verb "painted" about Rand Paul. He may not be "an obstructionist nut-job", but not every doctor in politics is a near-genius. Ophthalmologists need good hands and caffeine-free nerves, but most of their intelligence is spent getting into medical school and their residencies. After that, they can coast into prosperity, or even politics.
After seeing KY politics up close and still having relatives latched onto the state teat, I can only say that it will be difficult to dislodge Mitch and Rand until they become overtly senile or asystolic. Too bad they have so much influence.
Interesting how senators from small states rise to power (i.e. W VA - Byrd) and affect the nation's destiny, sometimes harmfully.
Obviously, Yellen is the logical choice to follow Bernanke, since smart women do better than men, because they have to be a LOT smarter to get close to power, and some of them are politically quite adept, and she shares most of his approach. Bernanke probably shallowed out the depression, and it probably isn't really over, so it doesn't make much sense to change strategies now. Those who say he should have let the market "take its course" have independent incomes or salaries based on their commentaries, which must reflect their bosses' ideologies. Most of us are glad not to be reliving the 1930's.