Info comes via Barrons (may be gated).
Scott Bessent is described as “one of Donald Trump’s closest economic advisers”. He has proposed that Trump nominate and seek Senate confirmation of Powell’s replacement well over a year before Powell’s term ends in May 2026.
In effect, a ‘shadow’ Chiar. The approved nominee would need to wait for Powell’s term to end but the idea is that person’s guidance, predictions, and potential criticism of the Fed’s actions would weigh heavily on financial markets.
- “You could do the earliest Fed nomination and create a shadow Fed chair,” said Bessent. “And based on the concept of forward guidance, no one is really going to care what Jerome Powell has to say anymore.”
- “This is my idea, not the president’s,” Bessent said in an interview.
- Ed Yardeni, a longtime Fed watcher and the president of Yardeni Research, called it a “terrible” idea, explaining that a shadow Fed chair would “create a lot of noise in the market.”
More at that link above if you can access it.
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