{"id":7347,"date":"2025-12-27T23:03:05","date_gmt":"2025-12-27T23:03:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/?p=7347"},"modified":"2025-12-27T23:03:05","modified_gmt":"2025-12-27T23:03:05","slug":"why-over-80-of-americas-top-ceos-think-trump-would-be-wrong-not-to-pick-chris-waller-for-fed-chair","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/?p=7347","title":{"rendered":"Why over 80% of America’s top CEOs think Trump would be wrong not to pick Chris Waller for Fed chair"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Since the founding of the Federal Reserve in 1914, the United States has had 16 Fed chairs, yet rarely has the selection of the nation\u2019s central-bank leader captured such sustained media and political attention as the spectacle which his playing out right now. Of course, this is by design; at least since the debut of\u00a0The Apprentice<\/em>\u00a0in 2004, Donald Trump has reveled in transforming senior hiring decisions into a public spectacle\u2014casting staffing choices as a form of modern gladiatorial entertainment. While this approach has drawn criticism, including my\u00a0original 2004 critiques in the WSJ<\/em>, it also has the paradoxical virtue of rendering candidates\u2019 strengths, weaknesses, and temperaments unusually transparent.<\/p>\n

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Much of the media\u2019s attention has centered on Kevin Hassett and Kevin Warsh as the presumptive front-runners to be next Fed Chair. Both are highly respected, with long track records of public service and honorable character. But whether fairly or not, their\u00a0perceived weaknesses have been under a magnifying glass, creating an opening for an ascendant dark horse who is drawing\u00a0growing backing\u00a0from the top CEOs of the nation\u2019s largest enterprises.<\/p>\n

CEOs are gravitating towards that dark horse candidate, current Fed Governor Chris Waller, because while he may lack the White House network of other top contenders; he is quickly emerging as perhaps the only candidate who can cut interest rates with broad-based credibility and build broad consensus around those needed rate cuts, both at the Fed as well as across corporate America and within financial markets.<\/p>\n

A great irony in President Trump\u2019s jawboning of the Fed is that Trump is perhaps his own worst enemy in trying to force interest rates down. Ironically, the belief that interest rates need to come down is shared not only among economists across ideological anchoring, and not only among many top business leaders, but even many of Trump\u2019s most vocal critics. We have previously\u00a0written several publications calling for the Fed to lower interest rates, pointing out that entire sectors, such as homebuilders, are getting hammered unnecessarily from holding rates so high for so long.<\/p>\n

CEOs care about interest rates coming down, but they care even more about Fed independence. History is clear: countries that politicize their central banks set themselves on a path towards monetary purgatory and collapse. That\u2019s why Trump\u2019s brazen interventions at the Fed have wreaked havoc in the markets, with bond\u00a0investors in active revolt and with long-term bond yields rising by 20 basis points\u00a0after some pointed commentary from Trump.<\/p>\n

Chris Waller is perhaps the only choice for Fed Chair who can thread the needle. Unlike other top contenders, Waller\u2019s calls for rates to come down reflect not convenient political posturing nor obsequious flattery, but genuine intellectual conviction. Waller has been incredibly consistent and correctly prescient across his entire career at the Fed; he correctly pointed to signs that the economy, and in particular employment, was softening, and has been calling for rates to come down for far longer than any of his peers at the Fed.<\/p>\n

Yet, at the same time, Waller has\u00a0emphasized and defended central bank independence time and time again, building off his own academic research which was focused on the importance of central bank independence. Indeed, prior to Waller\u2019s public service at the Fed starting in 2009, he was a renowned academic with a long track record of groundbreaking economic research, including as professor and the Gilbert F. Schaefer Chair of Economics at the University of Notre Dame.<\/p>\n

Financial markets have already offered a preview of how they would respond to a potential Waller nomination \u2014 decidedly positively. When\u00a0CNBC broadcast live Waller\u2019s hour-long plus Q&A\u00a0with 200 top CEOs in attendance at our Yale CEO Summit last week after\u00a0a moderated Q&A with CNBC\u2019s Steve Liesman; stocks\u00a0rallied and bond yields fell in real time\u00a0as Waller\u00a0called for rates to come down, pointing to softening employment numbers,\u00a0while simultaneously pledging to defend central bank independence. No other contender for Fed Chair has sparked such a positive market reaction.<\/p>\n

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courtesy of the Yale Chief Executive Leadership Institute\/Photographer Donovan Marks<\/p>\n<\/figure>\n

Waller is a lifelong Republican who has a knack for getting along with very different constituencies, all of whom respect his genuine expertise, personal humility and willingness to listen. Even CEOs who disagreed with certain aspects of Waller\u2019s arguments clearly appreciated his constructive engagement, as well as his intellectual honesty and independence. When we polled the room, as\u00a0reported by Nick Timiraos of The Wall Street Journal<\/em>, a whopping 81% of CEOs picked Waller\u00a0as their top choice for Fed Chair, building on prior polls done by\u00a0CNBC showing a majority of market participants prefer Waller, as well as prominent endorsements from\u00a0publications such as The Economist<\/em>.<\/p>\n

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Many CEOs at our Yale CEO Summit\u00a0expressed their appreciation\u00a0for Waller\u2019s long track record of partnering effectively with business leaders on challenges as well as opportunities. Take crypto innovation as one such example. As the Fed Governor who oversees the payment system, Waller was once again correctly prescient as an advocate of stablecoins dating back to before 2021, when few knew what stablecoins even were, and he convened the first ever\u00a0Payments Innovation Conference\u00a0earlier this year, bringing in top leaders from industry to help shape the future of stablecoin payments.<\/p>\n

President Harry Truman lamented, \u201cGive me a one-handed economist.\u00a0All my economists say, \u2018on ONE hand\u2026\u2019, then \u2018but on the other.\u2019\u201d Business leaders appreciate Waller\u2019s serious and decisive style, his systemic economic knowledge, his track record of constructive engagement, his clarity of message, and his credible presence, which transcend political or personal career agendas.<\/p>\n

The opinions expressed in Fortune.com commentary pieces are solely the views of their authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions and beliefs of <\/em>Fortune.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

#Americas #top #CEOs #Trump #wrong #pick #Chris #Waller #Fed #chair<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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