Are Fischer Rumors Indicative of A Major Israeli Economic Crisis?

Will current Bank of Israel head Stanley Fischer be leaving Israel for the New York Fed? According to a report in the Wall Street Journal, Fischer is considered to be a dark horse to fill the vacancy left by Timothy Geithner, who is joining Pres. elect Barack Obama as Treasury Secretary.

According to the Journal, “Outsiders who could be considered include Peter Fisher, a former Treasury official who is now a senior executive at BlackRock Inc.; Stanley Fischer, an economist who runs Israel’s central bank; and Roger Ferguson, a former deputy Fed chairman who is now chief executive of TIAA-CREF, an investment firm that specializes in serving academic institutions.”

The question is whether if this is so, does this mean the Israeli economy is about to go into the gutter. Fischer has a history of bailing out just in the nick of time, before disaster strikes. Just look at where he was before he came to Israel. He was a hot shot at Citigroup (C), Vice Chairman. I may be wrong but I think that he was involved with risk management. Funny that he left in 2005. Humm.. Think he may have known a thing or two about what ‘toxic’ things were on their balance sheet?????

Just today the ‘09 growth estimates fro Israel were slashed again. This must make 3-4 times in the last month. That doesn’t look all that promising to me.

To be fair, Fischer’s name always seems to pop up when there are top level economic vacancies to fill, so I wouldn’t be jumping to any conclusions just yet.

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