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Greenspan to quit as Fed Reserve chairman
(AP)
Updated: 2006-01-31 11:28
Alan Greenspan, widely viewed as the U.S. economy's maestro, is preparing to
turn over his conductor's baton to successor, Ben Bernanke.
Greenspan, 79 and the second-longest serving chairman of the Federal Reserve,
will preside over his last interest-rate meeting Tuesday as he retires after 18
1/2 years as head of the U.S. central bank.
Waiting in the wings to take the baton is Bernanke, 52, chosen by President
George W. Bush to run the Fed.
Bernanke is a respected economist who spent 17 years teaching at Princeton
University before becoming a governor at the Federal Reserve and then chairman
of the White House's Council of Economic Advisers.
Alan Greenspan is seen in central London December 2,
2005.[Reuters/file] | The Senate is expected to
approve Bernanke's nomination Tuesday. His swearing in as the 14th chairman of
the Federal Reserve, created by Congress in 1913, probably will come Wednesday.
Greenspan's last major piece of business Tuesday will be guiding his
colleagues to a decision on interest rates. Economists predict the Fed will
boost interest rates by one-quarter percentage point to 4.50 percent to thwart
inflation.
If the ritual of past meetings holds, Greenspan will sink into his chairman's
chair _ the top of which has a little brass plaque that carries his name. He and
his colleagues will discuss interest rate policy gathered around a 27-foot
(8-meter)-long mahogany table that sits beneath a 1,000-pound (450-kilogram),
brass-and-glass chandelier festooned with dignified eagles.
Greenspan's agile handling of the economy has earned him monikers, including
the maestro, the greatest central banker who ever lived and the second-most
important person in Washington.
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