Greenspan Marches On
There have been reports of dissension so strong among policy makers in the Federal Reserve System as to threaten chairman Alan Greenspan with loss of control and authority over the nation's powerful central bank.</br></br>Fed governor Wayne Angell, one of the leaders of a 1986 revolt that forced former Chairman Paul A. Volcker to amend his ways, and reportedly one of the current dissenters, tells me: "It's nothing like that. There's no challenge to Greenspan's control or authority. The whole thing has been overblown."</br></br>Greenspan himself is understood to have declared forcefully that there has been no diminution of his authority or threat of that happening. He acknowledges there have been disagreements within the policy-making Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC), but he sees them as narrow and tranquil compared with earlier years.</br></br>Many sources agree that the six Fed governors (in addition to the chairman) and the 12 regional Federal Reserve Bank presidents play a larger role now under Greenspan than they did under Arthur Burns or under Volcker when a "Gang of Four" governors, including Angell, in effect forced Volcker to use a more collegial and less dictatorial guiding hand.</br></br>Despite the present dust-up, moreover, it still seems likely that President Bush will reappoint Greenspan to another four-year term this August - which, it can be assumed, he wants.