Bernanke’s successor likely won’t overhaul things
It’s highly unlikely the next head of the Federal Reserve will make any monumental changes in policy when he or she takes the reins from Ben Bernanke.
“It’s not going to be a sudden shift [of policy],” says John Carney of CNBC’s NetNet blog.
In Washington, the fight is brewing over who President Obama will nominate as the next chair of the Fed. The two most talked-about names are former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers and Fed vice-chairwoman Janet Yellen, who would be the first woman to take the Fed chair.
“Larry Summers will make for better stories becaue he fights with everyone,” says Heidi Moore of The Guardian. “But Janet Yellen has a lot more of support within the Fed. And she has that academic approach we like in our Fed governors.”
Also this week, prosecutors indicted SAC Capital, a hedge fund that the U.S. Attorney’s office have had their sights on for a decade.
And the Obama administration sought to reframe the conversation in Washington around President Obama’s economic accomplishments with a series of speeches.
Each week, the Weekly Wrappers offer their #longreads picks for the weekend ahead.
John Carney of CNBC’s NetNet blog suggests:
- When you think of hedge fund titans, you might think of places like New York, London, or Greenwich, Conn. But Roddy Boyd of the Southern Investigative Reporting Foundation has the story of the rise and fall of the hedge fund king of Akron, Ohio.
- A piece from The Economist looks at how in our economy, it’s getting increasingly difficult to tell who is lucky and who is talented. And yet, whether it’s luck or talent, there are some folks doing better than the rest of us.
- Do you think your city has the worst drivers? Slate’s Brian Palmer has done an investigation, and the results may surprise you.
Heidi Moore of The Guardian recommends:
- The name Steve Cohen is about to be in the news a lot more, after the grand jury indictment of his hedge fund. While much has been written about Cohen, James Altucher has this personal and fascinating account about how he courted and learned from the head of SAC Capital.
- In New York, the scandal surrounding mayoral hopeful Anthony Weiner and his sordid text-based affairs has sucked up all the air in the room. Reading the news headlines inspires despair about the human condition, but a lovely, clear, surgically smart analysis by Jennifer Senior at New York Magazine shows why it’s the human condition to be interested in the whole thing — even for those of us who do not send naked pictures of ourselves to strangers.
- Some great ideas that have the potential to change the world never make it off the ground. Others revolutionize our lives. Atul Gawande, one of the best writers on science and medicine, wonders why some ideas stick while others don’t in The New Yorker — he talked to Marketplace’s Kai Ryssdal about the story, and the inequality of viral ideas, earlier this week.
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