October 25, 2005

Bernanke Comments

When economics gets into the news I'm pleased. But the problem with talking about the Fed nominee Ben Bernanke is it goes into an area I'm not well versed in. I'm acquainted with macro and monetary economics from my undergraduate work, but I caught the Hayek bug* and have been more interested in microeconomics--especially the distribution and use of knowledge--and political economy broadly defined. Plus, I'm not fond of the wizbang applied mathematics macro has turned into.

Still, talking about the Federal Reserve and its role in the economy gets the econ gears in my head turning. Here's some blogospheric comments on Bernanke:

• Steve Verdon considers Bernanke "more moderate than Greenspan" and sees him as a "rules" man in the "rules vs. descretion" debate.
  
  

• Greg Ransom isn't happy. He'd prefer an Austrian macroeconomist like George Seglin, Roger Garrison, Larry White, or Steven Horwitz. I wonder if could get us back on the gold standard without Congressional action?
  
  

• No surprise at the Mises Blog. Jeffrey Tucker isn't happy.
  
  

• Tyler Cowen gets into Bernanke's contributions to monetary and macroeconomics.
  
  

• Russell Roberts does his best ScrappleFace impersonation and reports that President Bush named his personal accountant to be Fed chief.