The next head of the Federal Reserve should run it like a business, because the owner of any company who understands an operating budget — and profits and losses — might do a better job than an economist, according to Moshe Silver, director of compliance at Hedgeye Risk Management.

Writing in Fortune, Silver said current Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke belongs to the "Alan Greenspan-Henry Paulson-Tim Geithner school of coddling the rich."

"It is not clear to us that Bernanke ever believed the multiple trillions of dollars in guarantees, free profits on Treasury spreads and actual cash handouts were ever going to turn into actual loans to America's businesses."

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According to Silver, a "Volcker-like" short, sharp shock to the financial system would have been far better for the economy than the listless economic stall-outs that the United States has suffered through during much of the past three presidencies.

Instead of having an economist like Bernanke at the helm of the central bank, Silver said it may be better to have a businessman at the helm, especially since, in his view, elected officials have abdicated the responsibility for decision making to outside experts, anyway.

"Perhaps the Fed needs someone with experience meeting operating budgets, hiring and managing employees and tracking flows in the economy to stay on budget," he wrote.

"We never need to stay within a budget as long as we have unlimited access to the printing press. Maybe the next Fed chair should be the owner of a major plumbing supply house or a machine-tool shop."

In a separate analysis, Fortune estimated the central bank has lost at least $151 billion in the past seven weeks, a price tag the magazine called Bernanke's "talk tab." The fed chairman has roiled financial markets in recent weeks with his comments on the Fed's quantitative easing and other elements of an ultra-loose monetary policy that has, among other things, reflated ailing big banks.

Many experts have suspected the federal government would eventually lose money on the estimated $2.5 trillion in bonds it has bought since the 2008 economic meltdown in an effort to boost the economy and spur job creation.

In an analysis last week, The New York Times said the Congressional framers of the modern Federal Reserve System — who put the apparatus together 100 years ago in 1913 — "would be shocked" to see how far the Fed has strayed from its original intent.

At the time, the bank was charged with only three purposes – providing a flexible currency, creating a commercial paper market and supervising banks. "Regulating the economy was not among them," The Times noted.

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