Reaction to Ben Bernancke's nomination to sit in Alan Greenspan's chair has been generally positive, and was met with what might be called irrational exuberance by the markets yesterday. The Journal has some reaction and has a welcoming editorial today.
The best real-language assessment I have seen in blogs is on Marginal Revolution. This is a good read for everybody, but especially useful to those non-financial people out there whose days are not wrapped in and around markets.
In my opinion, Bernancke was a good choice and should be a successful Fed Chairman. I also think that he will continue to tighten money in the immediate future. He is known as an iflation dove but he may find himself having to become more aggressive down the road, depending how the economy pans out. This will catch some people by surprise, but Bernancke has the quality of being more based in process than in dogma. He is a proponent of inflation targeting and price stability.
For general public consumption, I expect Mr Bernancke to employ less obfuscatory language than Mr Greenspan (I can't tell you how many clients used to ask me what the hell Alan was talking about). He is just as smart as Greenspan, but he tends to couch his public statements in less jargon and purple prose. I hope to watch some of his confirmation hearings, which most will find tremendously dull.
That's what we have Harriet Miers for, I guess.
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