Paul Volcker for Fed chairman!

I keep hearing people arguing for the renomination of Ben Bernanke by claiming that there's no one else who can do the job. That's status quo bias taken to an extreme. (Four years ago, many people thought no one could replace the Maestro.)

Ben Bernanke was on the Federal Reserve Board of Governors from 2002-2005, when it willfully ignored the growth of the housing bubble. Thus Bernanke is like an arsonist firefighter, who creates a crisis and then gets treated like a hero because he resolved it. We need a Fed chairman who will act to prevent problems in the first place.

The truth is that there are many good economists who could take Bernanke's place. Although old, Paul Volcker is in good health and is widely considered to have been the best Fed chairman. He could do the job again. Another option would be Stanford economics professor John B. Taylor, inventor of the Taylor Rule. Got any suggestions? Leave them in the comments.

Update: Calculated Risk suggests Janet Yellen for the job. Also, Paul Krugman says appointing himself to the job would be crazy. I oppose Krugman because he favors a version of the Taylor Rule that mimics the bubble-blowing Greenspan Fed's interest rate policies.