I think you may have taken that a bit out of context:
Worse, I misread it. My apologies.
He seemingly has a list, put together with the help of his advisors. Like anything else, I expect minimal effort and whoever Fox and Friends mentions the day before to likely seal his endorsement. But if you look at some of those candidates, like Warsh, who I have seen mentioned a lot. He is very worrisome. As Mandark pointed out with the rest of the Krugman column, its one of these "is this guy(Warsh) really an erratic market fundamentalist with a penchant for catastrophizing and tunnel-visioning phantom inflation?" A Scott Pruitt of the Fed? Or was he just playing one on TV? Krugman hasn't been the only one worried about that answer, and for good reason IMO. Trumps so-called "experts" he leans on are anything but. With few exceptions they are sycophants, barely qualified, self-promoting, corrupt, or ideologues. In terms of economic expertise, Trump has like one, and a bunch of Goldman Sachs guys(the type of Goldman Sachs people that would be in a Trump presidency) that seem to have his ear. Not exactly a recipe that is likely to yield much in the way of quality leadership hires.
I'm having second thoughts now. It doesn't help that for the past few days this has been plastered on the front of The Economist:
Asset prices are high across the board. Is it time to worry? (Betteridge's Law of Headlines anyone?), which argues that the Fed's been fairly responsible with the economy lately and should continue what it's doing. The subtext is that doing something else could trigger a crisis.
My own bias is that it's hard not to have unwavering belief in the strength of institutions. And even looking at the shortlist, besides Warsh, it's not so bad. Warsh, if true to his public statements, would be a huge mistake to appoint as Fed Chair. I don't think there's any question that he really does hold those beliefs because as the Vox hitpiece on him notes, he was an avid deregulator during the Bush years, so he's got that taste for blood.
Gary Cohn would not be so bad. He's sort of got the opposite problem of Warsh, which is that he won't raise rates fast enough. But I also wouldn't bet on him at all because he's the lone economic advisor you mentioned. He already has a relationship with Trump so I think Trump would want to keep him on.
Lastly, Powell is obviously just a continuation of current Fed policy. So "things remain the same" is even higher than the Yellen factor. And there's more that gets me to bet this way, too, because as CNBC has noted, Trump likes the way the stock market has been going, so there's a real risk to changing that formula.
