PRESIDENT BUSH NOMINATES BEN S. BERNANKE TO SUCCEED GREENSPAN

President Bush nominated Ben S. Bernanke, chairman of the president's Council of Economic Advisers, to succeed Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan. Bernanke's profile from The Washington Post:

Five years ago, Ben Bernanke posed the prescient question in an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal, "What Happens When Greenspan is Gone?"

President Bush answered on Monday: Replace Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan with Bernanke, a straight-talking Ivy League economist with a reputation for eschewing political ideology.

In the world of economic theory and policy, Bernanke, 51, has espoused targeting inflation, stressed the importance of communication and transparency by the Fed and argued that the final say on debts and deficits lies with the president and Congress.

Born in Georgia and raised in Dillon, S.C., Bernanke was an academic star. In sixth grade, he won the state spelling bee but missed higher acclaim when he faltered on the word "edelweiss," a flower. He got a score of 1,590 on his SAT out of a possible 1,600, taught himself calculus in high school and then focused on economic numbers at Harvard.

After graduating summa cum laude from the Ivy League university in 1975, Bernanke continued his studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he received his doctorate four years late. His focus during his years in Boston were the underpinnings of the Great Depression and the losing ways of the city's beloved baseball team, the Red Sox.

The former was his field of study; the latter an obsession he eventually shed. A Washingtonian of late, Bernanke recently switched his allegiance to the capital's baseball team, the Nationals.

He was an economics professor at Stanford and chaired the department at Princeton.

Sworn in as chairman of the president's Council of Economic Advisers in June, Bernanke had served on the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System. (full article)