Yellen to be Nominated as Fed Vice Chairman

U.S. President Barack Obama plans to nominate San Francisco Federal Reserve Bank President Janet Yellen to be vice chairman of the central bank, a CNBC source has confirmed.

Well, add a little more weight to the inflation end of the inflation/deflation debate.

Yellen is a clear inflationist, at this point in time.

"If it were possible to take interest rates into negative territory I would be voting for that," she told reporters after a speech in San Diego on February 22, according to CNBC.

I think she has had her eye on Washington D.C. for awhile.

In July, 2009, when there was speculation that Bernanke might not get re-confirmed, I wrote:

Does Janet Yellen Want Be Ben Bernake's Replacement?

It sure sounds like it.

I have been following the speeches of the San Francisco Fed president for years, never before has she come out so in favor of printing money.

Prior to the summer of 2008, Yellen speeches were fairly bland, everything was, "On the one hand this, on the other hand that". She never took a position on anything. Sometime in mid-summer 2008, she started taking positions on everything, the economy, inflation and what the Fed should do. I even raised the possibility that she was using a different speech writer, becasue her speeches were so different.

Whatever it was, it seems to have worked in getting her where she wants to be in Washington D.C. Will she maintain her outrageous inflationary posture when she becomes Fed vice-chairman, who knows? But, I certainly wouldn't have picked her for the position.