Dr Miran will be fine. He’s a smart guy with a PhD from Harvard.
There was an unexpected vacancy at the Fed. Adriana Kugler’s term was due to end on 31 January 2026 and she decided to leave a few months early to return to Georgetown, and helpfully didn’t announce it until the last minute. Dr Miran’s nomination is to complete that term, which is what 5 months now, and he has to be confirmed by the Senate. The President needs someone in there as soon as possible (the next Fed meeting is Sept 17), and nominating someone who has already been confirmed by the Senate for their current position speeds up the process. Dr Miran to the rescue.
Fed governors have a 14-year term, and another nomination and confirmation for a full 14-year term will be needed when Dr Miran’s term expires, and the consensus seems to be that whoever gets the full term will become Fed chair when Powell leaves.
If Dr Miran does an outstanding job at the Fed, it’s possible that he’ll be nominated for the full term, but the thinking at the moment is that he’s helping out in the short-term because of the confirmation process. There seems to be an 11-name shortlist being bandied about for the full term, including the 2 Kevins. The Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has said he doesn’t want the job and wants to stay where he is.
If Dr Miran does get the nod for the full term, he’ll need to be renominated and reconfirmed in January.
Added: the 11 have been reported as
Kevin Hassett, Director of the National Economic Council
Kevin Warsh, former Fed Governor
David Zervos, Chief Market Strategist at Jefferies
Larry Lindsey, former Fed Governor
Rick Rieder, Global Chief Investment Officer for Fixed Income at BlackRock.
Michelle Bowman, Vice Chair of the Fed for Supervision
Chris Waller, Fed Governor
Philip Jefferson, Vice Chair of the Fed
Marc Sumerlin, economic adviser in the Bush administration
Lorie Logan, President of the Dallas Fed
James Bullard, former President of the St. Louis Fed
That’s a list for chair, not the vacant seat, and if the president picks a current Fed governor then he’s going to need to pick someone to fill the vacant seat as well.
Bowman and Waller voted to cut at the last FOMC meeting. Jefferson did not.
Added 2: meanwhile there are calls for another Fed governor, Lisa Cook, to resign amid allegations of mortgage fraud. Allegedly she has mortgages on properties in Atlanta, GA and Ann Arbor, MI, and claimed both were her primary residence in order to secure a better rate.
Former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort went to prison for something similar. Senator Adam Schiff (D,CA) is alleged to have done the same, with reportedly a 3% rate on one of the mortgages.
Cook’s term ends January 31, 2038.
The President has said he has fired Ms Cook for alleged mortgage fraud.
I was going to suggest that she outsmart the President by resigning (“you can’t fire me, I quit!”) but she’s said she’s not going to resign. Which means I suppose that she’s been fired.
I know the Fed believes it can make its own rules (for example, repeatedly stating that it has a “dual mandate” when the law stipulates a triple mandate), but the law (the Federal Reserve Act) gives the President the power to remove governors for cause.
Not sure what happens if she pulls a George Costanza and continues showing up work. Who issues her paychecks, the Fed or the Treasury? And who controls security at the Eccles Building, the Fed or the feds?
Jerome Powell’s term as Fed chair ends May 15 2025. The President has so far resisted firing Mr Powell, but if Mr Powell sides with Ms Cook and (barring judicial intervention) continues to regard Ms Cook as a Fed governor, that may well be the straw that breaks the camel’s back and lead the President to fire Mr Powell for cause as well.
Chances are one side or the other will go to court and it will end up at the Supremes in what 6 months to a year.
Bond markets seem to be assessing the situation as if the situation is a sign of increased risk of policy become politicized. Long end of dem bonds saw a clear sell off. Inflation anchor is maybe coming off, who knows, maybe Captain Orange? What we’re seeing is a clear bear steepening. Triple-red tape again: equities down, greenback down, treasuries down.
I’ve got CNBC on at the moment. At least in the US, markets are calm.
According to the futures market, nothing bad has happened to equities overnight.
s&p is 6,400, implied open down 2 or 0.031%
dow is 45k, implied open down 20 or 0.044%
At 8:51am Eastern
10-year yield 4.277% which is +0.002, so again, nothing bad.
Edit: added 08/29/25
Ms Cook has explained that this was all a “clerical error.”
On June 18 2021 she got a mortgage on a property in Michigan and 2 weeks later on July 2nd she purchased a condo in Atlanta and got a mortgage on that. For both mortgages, she affirmed that the property in question would serve as her primary residence.
As background, at the time she was working at Michigan State University (in Lansing, which is an hour drive from Ann Arbor where the property was). There were calls at the time for Biden to nominate her to the vacant seat on the Fed, for example her wikipedia page has a link to a May 2021 article about the Chair of the Senate Banking Committee (Sherrod Brown) backing her.
She was nominated January 14 2022 and confirmed on May 10 2022 51-50 strictly along party lines with Kamala casting the deciding vote as VP.
In September 2022, the Michigan property was listed for rent. Rental properties typically require an investment/rental property mortgage rather than a residential mortgage.
The talking points on this seem to be that this should have been referred to the “Inspector General.” David Faber said it on CNBC yesterday, as have others.
The most recent prior scandal at the Fed that I can remember was back in 2021 when Fed Vice Chair Richard Clarida (a Trump 1 appointee) and 2 regional Fed Chairs were accused of improper trading at the start of Covid. letter from Warren to SEC
Senator Warren (Pocahontas) wrote to SEC Chair Gary Gensler asking that the SEC investigate and determine if insider trading rules were violated.
All 3 yielded to public pressure and resigned and all 3 were subsequently cleared by a separate (to any SEC action) investigation by the Fed IG.
I remember Stacey Herbert (Keiser Report) making a joke on air at the time that one of them (can’t remember which) had resigned to spend more time with his enormous portfolio.
Added 29 August 2025 part 2
There’s a 3rd mortgage.
On April 7, 2021 she got a mortgage on a condominium in Cambridge, MA as her “Second Home”.
Eight months later, on December 1, 2021, Cook signed an ethics form with the U.S. Government that this property was an “investment/rental property”.
As to how people know all this, Fed Governors (and a lot of other people) have to file disclosure reports, and the government posts them online. Lisa Cook 2023 Disclosure
p.11 she’s got $50k-100k income from a rental property in Cambridge MA value $500k-1M
p.12 that same property (same value) is listed as a personal residence for mortgage purposes
Fast forward to 2025 Lisa Cook 2025 disclosure
p6 it lists rental income from 2 properties (Cambridge MA and Ann Arbor MI)
p7 the Cambridge property is still listed as a personal residence for mortgage purposes.