Reply #74: Markets worry loyalty to guide Bush in Fed choice

[UpInArms]

http://today.reuters.com/PrinterFriendlyPopup.aspx?type=bondsNews&storyID=uri:2005-10-19T154327Z_01_N19432288_RTRIDST_0_BUSH-FED.XML

WASHINGTON, Oct 19 (Reuters) - Controversy over the pick of Harriet Miers -- the White House counsel and President George W. Bush's onetime personal lawyer -- for the Supreme Court has stirred concerns on Wall Street that loyalty may trump expertise in the pick of a new Federal Reserve chief.

With Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan due to to step down at the end of January, cartoonist Tom Toles captured the angst by showing a cleaning lady bursting through the Fed's door: "Now who's this Alan Greenspan fellow who I'm replacing?" And bloggers joke about headlines saying, "Bush picks own accountant to replace Fed's Greenspan."

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Wall Street has focused most of its attention on three names: White House economist and former Fed Governor Ben Bernanke, Harvard economist Martin Feldstein and former Bush adviser Glenn Hubbard.

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Hubbard, a fiscal expert and architect of Bush's 2003 tax cut, has the closest ties to Bush, although Feldstein advised the president's 2000 campaign.

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