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A look at Obama’s “economic team”
- Text size
Tom Eley
WSWS
November 26, 2008
President-elect Barack Obama’s choices for top economic positions underscore the fact that his administration’s overriding priority will be to secure the interests of the financial elite. The economic appointments have been welcomed by the political establishment and media as “centrist” and “center-right.”
Obama announced that Timothy Geithner, head of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, will be Treasury secretary, and Lawrence Summers, the former Treasury secretary under Bill Clinton, will lead the National Economic Council. The announcements were made at a press conference devoted to the economic crisis. [See, "Obama holds press conference, promises ‘whatever is required' for Wall Street"]
Geithner has been intimately involved in the federal bailout of the financial industry, working closely with Federal Reserve chief Ben Bernanke and current Treasury secretary Henry Paulson. It has been reported that Geithner was the principal architect behind the government-backed bailout of Bear Stearns, among other deals.
Geithner began his career with Kissinger Associates, Inc., in Washington, D.C., a consulting firm founded by former Nixon Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. He worked his way up in the Clinton administration to under secretary of the Treasury for International Affairs from 1998 until Clinton left office. In that capacity he worked under both Clinton treasury secretaries, Robert Rubin and Lawrence Summers.
Before being appointed as president of the New York Fed, Geithner worked as a policy director for the International Monetary Fund and was a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, a leading diplomatic think tank.
The financial elite delivered its verdict on Geithner’s selection on Friday. When the Obama transition team leaked word of his selection, the markets rallied. The Dow Jones industrial average climbed 494.13 points, or 6.5 percent. Geithner will be considered “Wall Street’s man” in the Obama administration.
Lawrence Summers, Obama’s selection to head the National Economic Council, was a leading economic official in the Clinton administration. As Treasury secretary, Summers became famous for using federal budget surpluses to pare down the national debt, even as Clinton slashed social spending.
Summers reputedly played a critical role in designing Washington’s emergency response to the Mexican and Southeast Asian financial crises (1995 and 1997).
- A d v e r t i s e m e n t
Summers served as president of the most elite American college, Harvard University, from 2001 until 2006. He played a reactionary role as the head of the university, denouncing students protesting Israeli policies and calling for the reintroduction of the Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC) at Harvard. He eventually resigned from his post after an uproar following remarks in which he said “intrinsic aptitude” was likely the main reason for the under-representation of women in the sciences.
Obama appears set to name Peter Orszag as director of the Office of Management and Budget. An economist with a PhD from the elite London School of Economics, Orszag has served as the director of the US Congressional Budget Office since January 2007. Previously he was a Senior Fellow at the liberal think tank the Brookings Institutution, and served in the Clinton administration as Senior Adviser on the Council of Economic Advisers.
Orszag is an advocate of revamping Social Security. He co-authored a book in 2004 called Saving Social Security: A Balanced Approach. In it, Orszag argues that a fundamental reason for the predicted insolvency of Social Security is that life expectancy “has risen by four years for men and five years for women since 1940,” “making benefits more valuable to recipients,” but more costly. To address this dilemma, Orszag advocated a combination of payroll and “benefits adjustments”—i.e., cuts in social security payments to retirees.
Jason Furman will likely serve as a senior economic adviser. Furman has expressed support for setting up private social security accounts and cutting benefits. Furman has headed the Brooking Institution’s Hamilton Project, an economic think tank founded by Robert Rubin.
A New York Times article on Monday, noted that Geithner, Summers, Orszag, and Furman are all protégés of Robert Rubin, whose advocacy of deregulation of financial institutions and markets has contributed to the current economic crisis. Rubin also played a leading role, as a senior adviser, in the policies adopted by Citigroup that have led it to the brink of ruin—and a second government bailout in two months.
As commerce secretary, Obama will name Bill Richardson, the governor of New Mexico, who served as energy secretary in the Clinton White House (1998-2000). Before becoming governor of New Mexico, Richardson also worked for Kissinger Associates and served on the corporate boards of several energy corporations.
To head the Council of Economic Advisors, Obama appointed University of California at Berkeley economist Christina Romer. Like the other selections, Romer, a career academic, has been called a “centrist.”
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November 26th, 2008 at 12:45 pm
HA,HA,HA………The jig is up NWO and your day’s of evil is at it’s end. You can run but you can’t hide!! Here is a video to watch for a giude to who fired the first shot and why we FIGHT.
http://www.ae911truth.org/flashmov11.htm
November 26th, 2008 at 1:09 pm
Has anyone noticed that these neo-cons just keep regurjitating themselves to either party that gets in power. How bout some new blood. after all, it’s these same old sheisters that got us into this mess in the first place. give me some ole lady that’s as honest as the day is long and she’d be better than the same old crap we see keep popping up every new administration. Hiring another FED neocon to run the treasury is asking for more trouble. Yeah………….Obama talked about change but that’s where it will end. JUST TALK!
TO ALL THE READERS OF INFOWARS…………….HAPPY THANSKGIVING!
2009 may very well be the year we rise up together and storm the gates of hell aka (Washington D.C.) and literally remove the spineless bastards that are selling us out. then, we can go after the elitists. my guess most of them are cowards that have “others” do their dirty work. they are actually weak people………..not powerful.
November 26th, 2008 at 1:18 pm
Orszag argues that a fundamental reason for the predicted insolvency of Social Security is that life expectancy “has risen by four years for men and five years for women since 1940,” “making benefits more valuable to recipients,” but more costly. To address this dilemma, Orszag advocated a combination of payroll and “benefits adjustments”—i.e., cuts in social security payments to retirees.
Maybe he should have said & that invesment banker life expectancy has increase to long & there needs to be a Major cut in exective pay & Bail Out Money or better yet lets use the bail out moey to refund social security from the money they stole. An with the 2 trillion bail out money we can lower the retirement age to 55 & increase the benefits (Note: these idiot could have given every family in the USA $600,000 with the trillion they sent down the derivitive rat hole so far) Then Depression Avoid & let the CEO jump out the builings like in 1930’s its a wonder full life for the rest of us once again!!!
November 26th, 2008 at 4:12 pm
I hope they choke on Barackwerst!
November 26th, 2008 at 5:36 pm
If only the national media would go in to detail on who we ‘trust’ to take care of business for our country. If you try to tell anyone about who is who and what is what, they think that you are crazy.
November 26th, 2008 at 5:46 pm
So basically its the same dog crap the american people stepped in before, just older in odor with a new dog. (obama).
November 26th, 2008 at 6:36 pm
“A look at Obama’s “economic team”
If the picture itself is worth a thousand words, the US should file for bankruptcy now.
November 26th, 2008 at 7:30 pm
Looks like Obama IS an “Uncle Tom” – just like Ralph Nader said he might be.
I guess that’s “Change”.
November 26th, 2008 at 7:41 pm
Is everybody blocked from the podcasts and ondemand streams at GCN, or just me?
Somebody please, say something!
November 26th, 2008 at 7:52 pm
There could have been a glimmer of hope with Summers with his history of using surpluses to whittle away at our national debt. The problem is that there will be no surplus after all these bailouts. Borrowing and spending has got the USA in this mess. Borrowing and spending isnt going to fix it.
Borrowing and spending has become a way of life for not only the US govt., but for many of our people too. Greedy banks give loans that have repayment requirements that are unachievable and stupid borrowers, only thinking about today and not about whats going to happen when thier ARM goes thru the roof have caused this economic crisis. Double that with credit card debt and many Americans have chosen, or were forced to by low wages from greedy employers, become moneyslaves to the big corporations.
Borrowing and spending means that you generally pay double + what the item is worth. People and govts need to get away from that. Credit card cos. deluge potential victims with offers of cash now, trying to dupe the poor and middle class people into debt. They put the terms in fine print, barely readable and hope that on top of charging what should be illegal interest in the first place, they can get thier fees for a person making a late payment or actually getting some cash, in many cases doubling the interest they make (and you pay) that month.
Im not sure when it started, but somewhere along the line, way back when, govts changed from taxing people and then, after they got the money, would decide where to spend it to now borrowing. Now it has evovled, or devolved in my opinion, from a mature adult type govt remembering who foots the bill to a little girl given an unlimited credit card to spend on her birthday party and inviting all her friends to play with it too. The manifestation of this is the US trillion dollar bailouts on top of trillion dollar debt balances and many billions in foriegn aid. Should we with all this debt be giving so many billions to countries who dont really do anything for us but be part of our ’sphere of influence’/ (crumbling expansionist empire)? Would the billions be better spent on stuff here at home? Should be illegal to spend our tax dollars on other countries well being? Certainly if it were, we’d be richer because the money would stay here and we’d be able to form groups and donate to worthy causes. Most importantly we would be doing this at our choice of worthy cause, not the govts.
We need a common sense revolution in this country. We need to stop outsourcing jobs by imposing stiff tariffs on imports and put US products produced by US labor on US shelves. We should always accept immigrants who flee persecution of religion and free speech. Our founding fathers were here for that too. We should however firmly deny all others who just want to come here to make money to send back to their families in thier homeland or worse yet sit on the doll and bring more here.
Unfortunatly the powers that be are only worried about getting enough campaign contibution for next term and filling the pockets of their friends even if they are not Americans. Corruption is rampant. The only way out is to allow limited time for lobbyists on the floor of the House to make statements and thats it. No more campaign contributions. Set up an even amount paid for by the taxpayer for all cantidates campaigns from all partys for thier commercials and travel and thats it. After that let it be grass roots, word of mouth ideology that decides who will be our elected officials. Lobbyists are ruining our great country. Let the ordinary citizen call for his cause by writing our elected officials individually or in mass. Numbers of signatures on letters from citizens should be the most weighing lobby here. Im not say get rid of lobbyists entirely, just make thier campaign contributions illegal and dramatically decrease thier time to make thier point.
I think that what I described in the above 2 paragraghs is our last hope. I believe that would encourage the govt to be much more attentive to the governed.
Any good detective knows that if you follow the money, youll most likely find your perpetrator.
November 26th, 2008 at 8:02 pm
#9 Proud Primate:
It’s 8PM Eastern. I tried the streams and they
work for me. Maybe your area server is
acting up.
Anyone else have any ideas?
November 26th, 2008 at 8:05 pm
Why has Obama been labeled “President-Elect”? He hasn’t won the electoral college vote. And it’s to my understanding that he (Obama) wasn’t suppose to be named “President-Elect” until after January 8 when all of the electoral votes were counted and he declared the winner. And I find it reprehensible that the mainstream-TELL-A-LIE-VISION media will not point this out!
This fucking election reeks of conspiracy & corruption…
Fascism―here we come.
November 26th, 2008 at 8:49 pm
Huck —
many thanks for your answer. What is an Area Server?
November 26th, 2008 at 11:54 pm
Uh, excuse me, the idiots that participated in the charade called ‘voting’, do you remember if you cast a ballot for Obama or Hillary Clinton? Seems to me it wouldn’t have made a difference. Every time I read of one of Obama’s appointments there’s a trail to a former Clinton-noid. Not to speak of Hillary herself. What a game.
November 27th, 2008 at 4:45 am
Where the Gold at! (Leprechaun/educational video)
~For the sheeple impaired… http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3_8Cc_eWpA
November 27th, 2008 at 6:31 am
Oh LOOK? It’s the Hollie -weird movie, “Sum of all Fears”, playing out right in front of our eyes.
November 27th, 2008 at 6:33 am
And, “24″, all rolled up intio 1.
November 27th, 2008 at 8:19 am
Change yep, bad to worse.
November 27th, 2008 at 9:12 am
I’m african american and I feel bad for the American who felt and will still fall for the illusionist trick. Until people start looking at systems instead of individuals and peronality ,we will always fail as a nation. WAKE UP.
November 27th, 2008 at 9:28 am
Psalms 37
1 Fret not thyself because of evildoers, neither be thou envious against the workers of iniquity. 2 For they shall soon be cut down like the grass, and wither as the green herb.
3 Trust in the LORD, and do good; so shalt thou dwell in the land, and verily thou shalt be fed.
4 Delight thyself also in the LORD; and he shall give thee the desires of thine heart.
5 Commit thy way unto the LORD; trust also in him; and he shall bring it to pass.
6 And he shall bring forth thy righteousness as the light, and thy judgment as the noonday.
7 Rest in the LORD, and wait patiently for him: fret not thyself because of him who prospereth
in his way, because of the man who bringeth wicked devices to pass.
8 Cease from anger, and forsake wrath: fret not thyself in any wise to do evil.
9 For evildoers shall be cut off: but those that wait upon the LORD, they shall inherit the earth.
10 For yet a little while, and the wicked shall not be: yea, thou shalt diligently consider his place,
and it shall not be.
11 But the meek shall inherit the earth; and shall delight themselves in the abundance of peace. 12 The wicked plotteth against the just, and gnasheth upon him with his teeth.
13 The Lord shall laugh at him: for he seeth that his day is coming.
14 The wicked have drawn out the sword, and have bent their bow, to cast down the poor and
needy, and to slay such as be of upright conversation.
15 Their sword shall enter into their own heart, and their bows shall be broken.
16 A little that a righteous man hath is better than the riches of many wicked.
17 For the arms of the wicked shall be broken: but the LORD upholdeth the righteous.
18 The LORD knoweth the days of the upright: and their inheritance shall be for ever.
19 They shall not be ashamed in the evil time: and in the days of famine they shall be satisfied. 20 But the wicked shall perish, and the enemies of the LORD shall be as the fat of lambs: they shall consume; into smoke shall they consume away.
21 The wicked borroweth, and payeth not again: but the righteous sheweth mercy, and giveth. 22 For such as be blessed of him shall inherit the earth; and they that be cursed of him shall
be cut off.
23 The steps of a good man are ordered by the LORD: and he delighteth in his way.
24 Though he fall, he shall not be utterly cast down: for the LORD upholdeth him with his hand.
25 I have been young, and now am old; yet have I not seen the righteous forsaken,
nor his seed begging bread.
26 He is ever merciful, and lendeth; and his seed is blessed.
27 Depart from evil, and do good; and dwell for evermore.
28 For the LORD loveth judgment, and forsaketh not his saints; they are preserved for ever:
but the seed of the wicked shall be cut off.
29 The righteous shall inherit the land, and dwell therein for ever.
30 The mouth of the righteous speaketh wisdom, and his tongue talketh of judgment.
31 The law of his God is in his heart; none of his steps shall slide.
32 The wicked watcheth the righteous, and seeketh to slay him.
33 The LORD will not leave him in his hand, nor condemn him when he is judged.
34 Wait on the LORD, and keep his way, and he shall exalt thee to inherit the land:
when the wicked are cut off, thou shalt see it.
35 I have seen the wicked in great power, and spreading himself like a green bay tree.
36 Yet he passed away, and, lo, he was not: yea, I sought him, but he could not be found.
37 Mark the perfect man, and behold the upright: for the end of that man is peace.
38 But the transgressors shall be destroyed together: the end of the wicked shall be cut off.
39 But the salvation of the righteous is of the LORD: he is their strength in the time of trouble.
40 And the LORD shall help them, and deliver them: he shall deliver them from the wicked, and save them, because they trust in him.
November 27th, 2008 at 10:48 am
Geithner is a german name. i wonder who was his father…
November 27th, 2008 at 1:29 pm
When it comes to 911 truth there is no better than alex jones. but his articles on obama and basic politics are crap. pure fear mongering and cherry picking information to make obama look bad. this kind of propaganda is making jones look like a propaganda outlet… is jones becoming the new fox news. god please say no.
November 27th, 2008 at 1:31 pm
“Why has Obama been labeled “President-Elect”? He hasn’t won the electoral college vote. ”
my lord what are you talking about. there are what, 2 states still counting? even without those 2 states obama has more than enough electoral votes to have won. his margin is huge. take away 4 or 5 states and he still won. jesus people, not everything is a conspiracy.
November 27th, 2008 at 1:33 pm
Obama will not be bush. chill out.
November 27th, 2008 at 3:04 pm
jordan romney says alex cherry picks on obama. its not hard to cherry pick on a man judicial watch put on its top ten most corrupt politicians.
obama is bad. pelosi, bush, paulson, bernanke, geithner, and their cronies are all bad. all of em.
November 28th, 2008 at 12:20 am
Hard to make change when you put the same all around you.
November 28th, 2008 at 11:37 am
Jordan,
No one has to make Obama look bad… please, just because you hate republicans doesn’t mean Obama must be the answer. You’re behaving exactly as planned, divide and conquer is alive and well.
December 1st, 2008 at 7:48 am
get independent
December 1st, 2008 at 8:53 am
It’s time to change from within. Go to http://www.upgradeyounow.com and take a step for yourself, stop being a spectator and take positive action in your own life!
Upgrade You Now!
December 3rd, 2008 at 4:40 pm
Me and my dog turned in our t-shirts for this guy a long time ago. I am so glad I got the $500 I contributed to his campaign refunded after he caved on FISA.
December 10th, 2008 at 5:31 am
YORBA LINDA, Calif. – Authorities are urging residents to consider evacuating areas of Southern California that were stripped by wildfires because an approaching storm could set off mudslides. The National Weather Service said Tuesday that