Stanley Fischer, Former Bank of Israel Chief, Reportedly Offered No. 2 Post at Fed
by JNS.org
JNS.org – Stanley Fischer, who served for eight years as the head of Israel’s central bank, has been offered the job of vice chairman of the U.S. Federal Reserve, Reuters reported, citing an anonymous source.
The Bank of Israel’s governor for eight years, the Fischer successfully steered the Jewish state’s economy through global financial turmoil and is generally credited with avoiding many of the pitfalls that have plagued other Western economies.
“Perhaps the best things that he did were the things he did not do,” Steven Plaut, Professor of Economics at the University of Haifa, told JNS.org in February after Fischer announced his intent to step down from the Bank of Israel in June. “In the United States, Chairman of the Federal Reserve Ben Bernanke essentially enabled President Barack Obama to spend trillions of dollars and push America’s debt to new limits.”
The appointment of Fischer, a former chief economist at the World Bank, would need to be approved by the U.S. Senate if he accepts the White House’s reported offer. Janet Yellen, the current vice chairwoman of the Federal Reserve, has been tapped to succeed chairman Ben Bernanke after his term ends on Jan. 31, 2014.