The Contortions the Administration is Going Through to Put Peter Diamond on the Fed

It won't matter much who gets on the Federal Reserve Board to fill a current vacancy. Bernanke has control of most of the board. But, it is instructive to observe the twists in regulations the White House is willing to go through to get Peter Diamond on the Board.

Diamond is a recent Nobel Laureate and  a professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Not surprisingly he lives in Massachusetts. This is a problem for the Administration.

According to Section 10-1 of the Federal Reserve Act, the next member of the Board of Governors may not come from a Fed district that already has representation on the board.

Fed Governor Dan Tarullo is already from Massachusetts, which makes Diamond ineligible. No problem for the Administration, as far as they are concerned he is from Illinois. Here' s Diamond's cv, see if you can find out he claims an Illinois residence.

According to Mark A. Calabria, the basis of this claim is that he has lectured at Northwestern University.

Calabria continues:

To believe that giving a lecture at the school, located in Evanston, Illinois, makes one “from” Chicago displays contempt for the law that is unique even for this administration.

And, there you have it, mordern American government and its total contempt for the law.