‘We’ll give you Greenspan.’

Should an American lead the European Central Bank? That’s what Sylvain Broyer proposes in the German newspaper Die Zeit. The original’s in German, but I’ve translated a portion:

I believe that the best candidate to follow Jean-Claude Trichet would be an American. It’s no doubt true that we have talented minds in Europe that have the necessary competence. But the challenges that await the future president of the European Central Bank demand a fundamental change in how we think about the essence of the monetary union…

The next ECB-President has to show the willingness to act as a lender of last resort for overly indebted member states…That recognition of the essence of a monetary union is rare in today’s Europe, but belongs to the mainstream on the other side of the Atlantic.

Nice try, Sylvain. You might have a point about the ECB’s philosophic mismatch for the current moment — but in case you haven’t noticed, we’ve got plenty of trouble trying to filling out the ranks of our own monetary institutions, what with the Senate filibuster holding things up. I know our out-of-work central bankers look like they’re just standing around, but they’re actually all under serious consideration for the three vacancies on at the Federal Reserve. (Except for Greenspan — you can have Greenspan.)

On the other hand, if Europe started picking off our top monetary candidates, maybe Fed appointments would become a more salient — because more patriotic! — issue?