Why Not Larry Summers for Fed Chief?

How about this: Ben Bernanke, who is supposed to serve until January of 2010, decides to resign as Fed chief, and Larry Summers takes his place.

Then we would have the best of both worlds -- no Bernanke, and a no-nonsense Fed chief who recognized a year ago that it was deflation we were battling, and he understood house price depreciation had to be stemmed. He saw and got it all.

I want to reiterate that I wanted him for Treasury, but Fed chief, which is what the Obama administration is floating, is far more important. Far more.

I had hopes, also, that Sheila Bair could be Treasury secretary, because, unlike Timothy Geithner, she stood up to Paulson and was not complicit in this abomination of a mortgage morass.

Look, maybe Geithner, the whole time, has been a massive dissenter from Bernanke and Paulson. That's what all of his allies are telling me. To me, in the end, he's a regulator, and he regulated Wall Street, and therefore he did nothing good, because Wall Street is bringing down the western world. He did not speak out on any of the issues that mattered, yet somehow people believe in him.

It would be great to have someone not tainted. I know I wanted others. But I want to hit the ground running, I want to get the ball rolling, and the floating of Summers as next Fed chair, with the hint therefore that Obama would love it if Bernanke resigned, is enough for another 500 points if it is true.

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