Neel Kashkari, R. Glenn Hubbard, Roger W. Ferguson, Meg Whitman, Larry Lindsey, or Keith Hennessey would all be much better choices. Oh well.
Why exactly? Powell seems like a relatively sensible choice, he isn't as dovish as Yellen but he also wouldn't scare the markets as much as Taylor. I guess him not having an economics PhD is a downside, but he's been member of the Fed board for 5 years now so he likely knows what he's doing (and the Fed has tons of smart PhD economists anyway).
Is he in favor of raising interest rates to deflate bubbles.
He's more hawkish than Yellen (and he's also more in favour of financial deregulation and Trump's tax policies, although he's not as right-wing as some other candidates), but Powell wouldn't signal a drastic change in monetary policy. Kevin Warsh and especially John Taylor would be the most hawkish candidates (and they're also very supportive of Trump's tax policies and financial deregulation). Powell, Warsh and Taylor are all Republicans btw. Trump himself is in favour of low interest rates (like someone already noted), so appointing a hawk wouldn't make much sense in that case. But Trump probably wants to appoint a supply-sider/Republican who is supportive of his policies but most of them also are quite hawkish. So Powell probably is the logical choice.
