OBAMA LITE:

To begin with, Powell may be a Republican, but he was actually first nominated to the Fed's board of governors by President Obama in 2012, as part of a compromise with the congressional GOP. Before that, Powell had racked up a long career in private equity, served as a Treasury Department official under President George H.W. Bush, and did a stint at the Bipartisan Policy Center, a D.C. think tank. He's about as "safe" and nonideological a pick as they come.

Everyone also seems to agree that Powell's approach to interest rates will be almost indistinguishable from what Yellen would've done. "He's made relatively few public pronouncements on monetary policy since joining the Federal Reserve Board of Governors, and the statements he has made don't indicate any major disagreements with Yellen," Matt Yglesias summed up at Vox. 

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