As we just talked about this in class, I thought I'd pass along news from Greg Ip and John McKinnon at the Wall Street Journal on Bush's choice to fill the two open seats on the Federal Reserve Board of Governors [posted here]:
Bush Is Moving To Fill Two Slots At Federal Reserve, by Greg Ip and John D. McKinnon, WSJ: With leadership at the Federal Reserve about to change, the White House is moving to fill two vacancies on the central bank's seven-member board of governors. President Bush plans to soon nominate Kevin M. Warsh, a White House adviser on domestic finance and capital markets, to fill one of the two vacancies, two people familiar with the matter said. Mr. Bush aims to fill the other seat with an academic economist, and the likeliest candidate is Randall S. Kroszner, who teaches at the University of Chicago's Graduate School of Business, one of these people said...
The nominations would tilt the board's composition toward financial-industry expertise rather than macroeconomics. Mr. Warsh, a lawyer by training, was an investment banker at Morgan Stanley before joining the White House National Economic Council. He has been the White House's point person on financial-industry issues. Mr. Kroszner, who served on the Council of Economic Advisers during Mr. Bush's first term, specializes in banking, banking regulation, international-financial crises and monetary economics...
From Brad DeLong on Richard Kroszner:
I know I'm proud to have played a (alas, very small) part in the education of Randy Kroszner and Robin Hanson, both far to my right.
From Institutional Economics:
Both Clarida and Kroszner would be excellent appointments. Appointing non-specialists with financial market backgrounds would be a mistake in my view, increasing the risk of ... regulatory capture by Wall Street...
That doesn't sound like a strong endorsement of Warsh. I know little about him. BusinessWeek Online has a bit more, but not much:
Warsh is the NEC's point man for contact with the financial-services industry. He has recently sought to raise his public profile by speaking to more industry groups and was mentioned as a candidate for chairman of the Securities & Exchange Commission before Bush tapped Rep. Christopher Cox (R-Calif.) for the job.
