President George W. Bush was to nominate his economic adviser Ben Bernanke as Federal Reserve chairman, to succeed Alan Greenspan, news reports said.
The Wall Street Journal and NBC News said Bernanke would be Bush's choice to be announced at 1:00 pm (1700 GMT) as the head of the central bank.
Greenspan is slated to leave the Fed after 18 years on January 31.
Asked at the end of a cabinet meeting on when a Fed chairman appointment would come, Bush said, "We'll make an announcement soon."
The appointment is seen as one of Bush's most important economic decisions, in finding a head of the independent central bank who is respected by US financial markets and in global economic circles.
Bernanke, 51, was a member of the Federal Reserve before leaving this year to head the president's Council of Economic Advisers.
A graduate of Harvard University, Bernanke has a Ph.D in economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
He was chair of the economics department at Princeton University from 1996-2002.
No comments:
Post a Comment