Flying Pink Unicorns

Possible Treasury Secretaries for Obama.



During the last debate, both Obama and McCain were asked about possible treasury secretaries should they win. Obama mentioned Warren Buffet by name. I give his answer a C. Here is what an A answer would look like. I note that I thought all of this at the time:



"Warren Buffet is a key advisor of mine, and his counsel will be sought should I be elected president. I would consider asking him to serve as treasury secretary. I would first ask Robert Rubin, who was President Clinton's Treasury Secretaries for several years during the 1990s. As you all will recall, the 1990s were a time of great prosperity in the United States, and Robert Rubin was a big part of it. His advice, that budget deficits be reduced, interest rates be kept low and spending not go up too fast was taken by Bill Clinton and the results were great for the American economy, as the 1990s were a boom time.



Another man I would strongly consider for the job is Larry Summers, who succeeded Robert Rubin as Bill Clinton's Treasury Secretary following Robert Rubin. Larry Summers is a brilliant economist, and I have great confidence in his abilities and experience.



Fundamentally, we need to return to the economic policies which were so successful in the 1990s, as I have advocated. This means returning tax rates on the wealthiest of Americans, those earning more than $250,000 per year, to the rates as they were when President Clinton left office. This means restraint on spending, once this economic crisis is behind us. This means prudent regulation, rather than the radical deregulation which John McCain has always supported."



This is what an A answer looks like.




As for actual treasury secretaries, you have now seen a quick peak at my list. Robert Rubin tops the list, but he's 70. In the appearances I have seen, brief though they are, he appears to be really slowing down. Edit-- I saw him very recently on CNN and he looked great, like he hadn't slowed down one bit. Maybe he is still out of the job. He is, however, a bit out of touch with what has gone on in recent weeks. That criticism, however, applies to anyone other than the current participants.

Larry Summers is also a fine choice. Sure, he pissed off the feminists with some comments about Harvard about maybe the reason that more women aren't in the sciences because of innate biological differences). He didn't say this was his view, he was musing aloud.
Anyway, we're in a ginormous financial crisis, and if Larry Summers is the best person for the job (and he may well be, excepting only Rubin and Paulson (???), I'd be delighted if Obama stuffed him right down the feminists' throats (though I count myself as one). This is just too important to let relatively minor controversies cloud our judgment.



Other possible choices include keeping Paulson in the job. He's been tardy in his reactions to the spreading crisis, but of late his talk has been bold indeed. He's now apparently actively considering massive capital injections into banks, which he rejected only 2 weeks ago. He may be a Bush appointee, but as Paul Krugman, a certified Bush hater, and opinion writer for the Times, said at the time of his appointment, Bush was scraping the top of the barrel.

For a wildly out of the box pick, how about William Jefferson Clinton? Billy's not an economist to be sure, but he's quite knowledgeable, really, knows how to take good advice, is an amazingly quick study, and would bring ginormous cachet to the job at a time it really needs it. I actually think he'd do it for a year if Obama grovelled. And I think he'd be a real success providing he had competent help. But clearly Rubin or Summers would be much better, as they could hit the ground running in a way that Clinton probably couldn't.

I know picking Clinton sounds nutso. But try this. Imagine that America is as it is right now, but the Soviet Union never dissolved. And for the past 3 months we've been engaged in a nasty ground war with the Soviets in Germany. Many hundreds a week dying. No end in sight, and always the possibility of radical escalation. Under those godawful circumstances, could you imagine President Elect Obama asking McCain to serve as Defense Secretary? I could. In a New York minute. Desperate times throw all the rules out the window. And make no mistake, the current financial markets' situation is dire and desperate in the extreme.