So will the US Senate be stupid enough to reject Ben Bernanke’s nomination this week for a second term as head of the US Federal Reserve, which makes him the most powerful person world finance?

Any vote against him would be an enormous slap in the face, especially with the Fed due to meet this week for the first time this year, with no change expected in interest rates.

Well, back in late 2008 the Republicans deserted George W Bush and rejected the first draft of the Tarp bank bailout package, helped by some other idiots in the Democrats. That nearly sank the US and global financial systems.

Rejection of Bernanke might not be as catastrophic, but would anyone in the US Senate really want to have a go?

The White House overnight said they were confidence Bernanke would be re-nominated.

So far it seems that four of the 59 ruling Democratic senators will, including the grandstanding Barbara Boxter of California and Russ Feingold. Both are up for re-election this year. Both are considered to be “leftish” in the American context. Barb is 70 this year and wants another six years aboard the gravy train that is the US Senate. Both face tough races, especially after the Democrats lost the Senate seat of the late Teddy Kennedy.

The Democratic Party’s loss of Kennedy’s Massachusetts Senate seat last week seems to have been the catalyst for the outburst of ego-driven grandstanding among the Senators about Bernanke.

It’s a case of nail Bernanke, reject him and then sit back in their taxpayer finance comfort and see the markets have a good old tank.

Coming after global markets had their roughest week last week since October-November last year, any rejection of Bernanke’s nomination could make it even rougher.

A combination of policy changes in the US on banking regulation, worries in Europe about the financial strength of Greece, concern that market valuations were ahead of earnings and unease about the rude health of the Chinese economy, saw financial and commodity markets sold off, along with equities.

China’s economic health is being questioned. It’s too healthy, inflation is seen as a concern, there’s lots of talk about bubbles. So Wall Street fell into the red for the year on Friday, joining the Dow and Nasdaq indexes. Other equity markets in Asia, Europe and in emerging markets were sold off as well. Gold and oil also fell.

The doubters about Bernanke say the Fed failed to prevent the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression, and combated the meltdown in a way that favored the financial sector at the expense of ordinary citizens.

In fact Congress played a major part, from not reacting to warnings of a housing bubble (because many members were taking campaign funds from the housing and financial sectors).

None of the Congressional oversight committees attempted to question the Fed and other regulators and politicians on why the housing and financing bubbles (few could see a bubble was emerging) were not being controlled.

Reuters said that In-trade, an online betting platform, now shows just a 68% chance the Fed chairman will be confirmed, down from 95% earlier in the week.

Senator Christopher Dodd, the about-to-retire chairman of the Senate Banking Committee  (who proposes stripping the Fed of banking supervision authority) said he supported the reappointment of Bernanke. He said rejecting the Fed chief would send the “worst signal to the markets right now” and produce an economic “tailspin”.

“This is the most important central banker in the world,” Dodd, a Democrat from Connecticut, said in Washington. (Remember Senator Dodd got a mortgage from the about-to-be-prosecuted head of CountryWide Financial at “mate’s rates” without declaring it. Disclosure laws in the US are very lax, especially for Senators).

But his was the only comment on Friday that made sense.

Sending Bernanke packing would see a sell-off in markets (the US dollar would be pummelled, as would US stocks). Such a decision could even derail the recovery in the US and other developed economies, such as Japan and Europe.