Orange County Register

President Obama will renominate Ben Bernanke to a second term as Federal Reserve chair …

Here’s some more opinions from Orange County market watchers to help you vote …

REAL ESTATE

Bill Plattos, FirstTeam: Yes on Bernanke. I have personally met him with nine other large brokers and discussed the market and short sales. Found him to be open minded, sharp and pleasant.

Steve Thomas, Altera: Ben Bernanke did what he could in a limited amount of time to reverse the course; he was just too late to avert the impending implosion of housing and international financing. Since the downturn, the Federal Reserve has propped up the financial system and helped increase demand in housing through policy decisions and by pouring money into the system. Short term, absolute economic collapse was prevented. In the long term I am concerned about the Federal Reserve navigating its way through the next few years. I am really concerned about inflation and higher interest rates to come and its overall impact to the economy.

ECONOMISTS

Mark Schniepp, California Forecast: Now that the worst is over, why not reappoint him? He can’t do much worse. While the U.S. economy may have slipped into recession, the severity and rapidity that characterized it may have been averted, and probably the panic as well. So I’m not a very strong supporter of what Bernanke did, but it could be argued that they were probably one time behaviorial events that were a reaction to unprecedented times regarding the credit crisis and troubled bank assets. Bernanke did maintain an aggressive monetary policy to try to impact the credit markets. He is like Greenspan, a strong advocate of limiting inflation, an ideology we will need in 2011 and 2012

Chris Thornberg, Beacon Economics: There are a lot of opinions, but realistically we don’t have the information necessary to make such an opinion. When he took office a short time ago he was immediately beset with enormous issues–greater than any Fed chief since the Great Depression. To deal with these he put into place a series of programs that were completely unprecedented in the history of the institution. These plans are still in place and in some cases continued to be expanded. Clearly the economy has stabilized. But whether they have truly worked to correct the problems, or if they have simply pushed them down the road a bit, or whether by doing so he has created a new set of problems we simple won’t know without the benefit of hindsight. This implies to me that he does deserve another term. We have chosen a course of action and for better or worse we nee to see it through to the end.

MONEY MANAGERS

Charles Rother, American Strategic Capital: Faced with one of the greatest economic crisis in our nation’s history, Ben Bernanke demonstrated great leadership, courage and creativeness. In the near term, the reappointment of Bernanke provides businesses, consumers and investors with confidence of continuity that is required during the early stages of an economic recovery. In the intermediate term, his inflation targeting skills will be tested. In the long term, Ben Bernanke’s intellectual leadership, clear communication skills, strong work ethic and willingness to challenge conventional methods will potentially lead to an even more effective and efficient monetary policy and stronger U.S. and global economy.

Chip Hanlon, Delta Global: President Obama had no choice but to re-appoint Ben Bernanke. The unprecedented spending plans of this new administration require a willing accomplice at the Federal Reserve; only an extraordinarily accommodative, inflationary monetary policy could allow such deficits to be possible. There was no way Obama could take the chance on nominating anyone else who might take a different monetary view which would make the administration’s deficits impossible. I often tell investors to think: if the tight money and tax cuts of the Volcker/Reagan era brought us out of our last stag-flationary period, what path are we following today, exactly?

Ryan Kelly, Spectrum Management: Switching horses mid stream is rarely a preferred strategy. But more importantly, Bernanke has done a good job navigating the worst financial crisis of our generation. Bernanke was a student of the Great Depression in the 1930’s, and he has avoided the major policy missteps made during both the US in the 1930s and Japan in the 1990s. Far more important for his 2nd term, will be balancing how long to keep printing money versus letting the private sector take back over its “normal role”. While most market participants will praise him today, he will burned in effigy if he runs the printing presses longer then needed.

O.C. Treasurer Chriss Street: President Obama’s reappointment of Ben Bernanke for another term as Fed Chairman has to be interpreted as a major defeat for the President’s liberal constituency. With the healthcare reform battering in the polls the President has taken over the last six weeks, he had no appetite to squander his remaining political capital on a bruising ordeal to confirm one of his allies to this powerful position.

Fed follies …