You didn’t have to be clairvoyant to see what was coming near the end of the election. With the race ending, Sen. Barack Obama was putting together his economic transition team, which I wrote about here.
Obama’s economic team:
1 – William Daley – Chairman of the Midwest, JP Morgan Chase; Former Secretary, U.S. Dept of Commerce, 1997-2000
2 – Robert Reich – University of California, Berkeley; Former Secretary, U.S. Dept of Labor, 1993-1997
3 – Penny Pritzker – CEO, Classic Residence by Hyatt
4 – Roger Ferguson – President and CEO, TIAA-CREF and former Vice Chairman of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve, 1997-2000
5 – Lawrence Summers – Harvard University; Managing Director, D.E. Shaw; Former Secretary, U.S. Dept of Treasury, 1999-2001
6 – Anne Mulcahy – Chairman and CEO, Xerox
7 – Richard Parsons – Chairman of the Board, Time Warner
8 – Paul Volcker – Former Chairman, U.S. Federal Reserve 1979-1987
9 – Rahm Emanuel – United States Representative (IL-05)
10 – Jennifer Granholm – Governor, State of Michigan
11 – Robert Rubin – Director and Senior Counselor, Citigroup; Former Secretary, U.S. Dept of Treasury, 1995-1999
12 – David Bonior – Member House of Representatives (Michigan) 1977-2003
13 – Laura Tyson – (Haas School of Business, University of California, Berkeley; Former Chairman, National Economic Council, 1995-1996; Former Chairman, President’s Council of Economic Advisors, 1993-1995)
14 – Antonio Villaraigosa – Mayor, City of Los Angeles
15 – William Donaldson – Former Chairman of the SEC, 2003-2005
16 – Eric Schmidt – Chairman and CEO, Google
17 – Roel Campos – Former Commissioner of the SEC, 2002-2007
Did anyone see one name on that list, one, that looked like it belonged? I didn’t either.
So, why are we surprised by who else was brought in?
David Reilly of Bloomberg.com has a nice piece out, “Wall Street Fox beds down in taxpayer henhouse.”
Aug. 26 (Bloomberg) — What do you do with someone who played a key role in the deregulatory push that ultimately led to the government’s $700 billion Wall Street bailout? In Washington, the answer is easy: Have him help oversee the rescue.
No wonder life in the U.S. capital can seem like an episode of “The Twilight Zone.”
The appointment of former Securities and Exchange Commission member Paul Atkins to the Congressional Oversight Panel — which monitors the Troubled Asset Relief Program — goes beyond the usual inside-the-Beltway games and should make investors wary.
Banks and other financial-services players are battling to thwart regulatory reforms. For them, Atkins, who earlier this decade helped in the counterattack on the post-Enron corporate overhaul, may be good to have around. After all, even if his fight for deregulation was due to his own views, Atkins ended up championing Wall Street’s cause.
Atkins was named last week to be one of two Republicans on the five-member TARP panel headed by Harvard Law School professor Elizabeth Warren. He replaces former Senator John Sununu, who stepped down in July.
and… it got better…
And while a power-broker within the commission, Atkins was also seen as the sharp tip of the deregulatory spear during George W. Bush’s presidency.
Atkins didn’t waver from his hands-off position, even as the credit crunch intensified. Speaking less than two months before the collapse of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc., Atkins in one of his last speeches at the SEC warned against calls for a “new regulatory order.”
He added, “We must not immediately jump to the conclusion that failures of firms in the marketplace or the unavailability of credit in the marketplace is caused by market failure, or indeed regulatory failure.”
When I spoke with him yesterday, Atkins hadn’t changed his tune. “If the takeaway by some people is that deregulation is the thing that led to problems in the marketplace, that’s completely wrong,” he said. “The problems happened in the most heavily regulated areas of the financial-services industry.“
As we’ve been told, first by Gersham Bulkeley in 1692, who spoke of actions as “more significant than words.” It’s nice having a President that can speak English, however, his actions are losing his base.
“surging” U.S. troops into Afghanistan…
no pressuring for Public Option in health care bill…
defending Bush’s secrecy claims, state secrets claims, without transparency…
bringing into Treasury one Wall Street drone after another that was part of the problem…
alienating the GLBT community every chance it gets…
And that’s just a quick list.
The blogosphere has been sounding the alarms for years. Congress and the Executive stared blankly at us. The ship is sinking.
Given that Obama has already held secret meetings with Pharma, I’d say he’s no longer on our side. Given that there are Democratic Senators who profit from the Health Industry lobby, I’d say they are no longer on our side. So… who is? The media? (laughter)…
I’d say there are two options:
1) Swamp DC with a million people. Have them on the streets, in offices, in hallways. Bring DC to a standstill until our message is heard.
2) Bend over, grab your ankles, and ask Uncle Sam to be kind…
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…Totally, Completely, Absolutely — proved to be too true.