dagblog - Comments for "Obama to tap Jack Lew to head Treasury"

When It Comes to Worldview,

artappraiser — Fri, 11 Jan 2013 06:16:26 +0000

In reply to Obama to tap Jack Lew to head Treasury

When It Comes to Worldview, Jack Lew is Obama in Coke-Bottle Glasses
By Noam Scheiber, The New Republic, Jan 9, 2013

Home page lede:

Republicans Will Confirm Jack Lew--And Liberals Will Have to Live With Him

Excerpt:

[....] Whatever the indigestion on the right, though, there’s no remotely coherent reason for the Senate to block Lew, and I suspect he’ll be confirmed by a wide margin. The longer-term threat to his tour as Treasury secretary could be grumbling on the left. This may be counterintuitive given his progressive credentials. But there’s a special sense of contempt people reserve for fellow travelers they feel may betray them, and it turns out Lew simply isn’t someone who believes Medicare and Social Security are untouchable. To the contrary, [....]

Who Is Jack Lew, Obama's New

artappraiser — Thu, 10 Jan 2013 22:09:31 +0000

In reply to Obama to tap Jack Lew to head Treasury

Who Is Jack Lew, Obama's New Pick for Treasury Secretary?
By Frederick E. Allen, Forbes, Jan. 9, 2013

[....] Lew is a longtime Washington insider with extensive experience both as a legislative aide and in the executive branch. He is generally considered low-keyed and cool, a number cruncher but also a committed, unflagging philosophical liberal. He’s been described as “like Rahm Emanuel, minus the four-letter words,” if such a contradiction is possible, and also as a first-rate negotiator. He’s more or less a Capitol Hill insider and a Wall Street outsider.

He grew up in Queens, New York, and he [....]

"Is Jack Lew a Friend to Wall

AmericanDreamer — Thu, 10 Jan 2013 19:01:17 +0000

In reply to Obama to tap Jack Lew to head Treasury

"Is Jack Lew a Friend to Wall Street?", Michael Hirsh, National Journal online, 6 hours ago, excerpt: (full article at http://news.yahoo.com/jack-lew-friend-wall-street-102242725--politics.html)

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On financial reform, Lew is a virtual cipher who, in his few public pronouncements, has appeared to toe the Rubin-Geithner line of minimal interference with America’s giant banks.

And Lew is taking over as Treasury secretary at a critical time. Two and a half years after enactment, the Dodd-Frank financial law is still not fully implemented. Even as the winds of financial turbulence threaten from Europe, financial-industry officials admit the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. has not developed the capacity to liquidate banks in the event of a crisis. Although it never became a 2012 campaign issue, financial regulation has lagged well behind schedule (no one even seemed to care, for example, when Mitt Romney failed to propose an alternative to Dodd-Frank, even though he had promised to do so). Wall Street’s lobbyists have managed to delay the “Volcker Rule” —the closest thing we have today to a Glass-Steagall law separating federally insured commercial banking from risky investment banking—by six months. The banks are also engaged in a behind-the-scenes effort to escape U.S. oversight of their derivatives activities overseas.

Into this den of super-sophisticated—and savage—lions of finance will walk the gentle-mannered figure of Jack Lew, who is expected to be easily confirmed. Hopes for change—any real progress in containing the power and systemic size of the banks—are not high. “By going with Jack Lew, Obama is making the decision: ‘I don’t want a fight over Treasury secretary. I want someone who’s going to maintain the status quo.’ That’s what Jack Lew represents,” says Jeff Connaughton, who as a senior Senate staffer fought for financial reform and later, in despair, wrote a book titled Wall Street Always Wins.

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Yglesias predicted November

artappraiser — Wed, 09 Jan 2013 23:51:01 +0000

In reply to Obama to tap Jack Lew to head Treasury

Yglesias predicted November 26.