Obama's Cabinet

OBAMA's CABINET - Core Economic Team Taking Shape

Straits Times 26th November

1. TREASURY SECRETARY = Timothy GEITHNER, 47 is the the New York Fed president since November 2003 and has been at the heart of the battle to contain the crisis.

Closely involved in the rescue of Citigroup, the Bear Stearns and AIG bailouts, and the decision to let Lehman Brothers go bankrupt.

Extensive Treasury experience, and has worked for the International Monetary Fund.

Attended junior high school in India and finished high school in Bangkok. Degree in government and Asian studies and has studied Japanese and Chinese. Spent early part of his career at the Treasury in the 1990's, helping manage economic crisis in Thailand, Indonesia and South Korea, as well as Brazil and Mexico. And during the Asian Crisis was one of the key players, with direct pager access to then- treasury secretary Mr Robert Rubin.

One criticism is his lack of first hand experience in business with only a short stint at Mr Henry Kissinger's consultancy.

Geithner is the long time protege to the following cabinet member Obama has chosen, Lawrence Summers, and whilst some have said he will make a good compliment for Geithner it has been questioned whether Summers will naturally undercut him as his earlier superior.

2. DIRECTOR, NATIONAL ECONOMIC COUNCIL = Lawrence SUMMERS, 53, is the (brash) Harvard University Economics Professor, known for his intellectual firepower, served as the treasury secretary between 1999-2001. Helped direct the US response to the Asian Financial Crisis (deputy treasury secretary) and was chief economist at the World Bank between 1991 and 1993.

3. HEAD OF THE WHITE HOUSE COUNCIL OF ECONOMIC ADVISORS = Christina ROMER, 49, is a Berkeley economics professor and on the National Bureau of Economic Research's business cycle dating committee, the arbiter of US recessions.

Has written widely on US economic history, the causes of the Great Depression and the impact of fiscal policy.

4. WHITE HOUSE BUDGET DIRECTOR, Peter R. ORSZAG, 39 is currently director of the Congressional Budget Office which provides analysis of economic and budgetary issues for lawmakers.During the Clinton administration, he was a special assistant for economic policy and senior economic adviser at the National Economic Council.

So what does this forbade for the future ...?

Seems like a team of highly academic and experienced individuals whose history and background fit perfectly with the current challenges facing US for the crisis and foreign policy. But, according to the newspaper article, it perhaps "lacks any real business people in the mix; people who have started a business form the ground floor, dealt with uncertainty, competition, and economic life and death on a daily basis".

But it does appear that he is choosing seats that address his first priority of dealing with sliding US economy. Well what are your comments..?

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Response...

NEW PROBLEMS, OLD SOLUTIONS ? - 30/11/2008

I've said it before, and I'll say it again. How can the same people, whose ideologies and policies created the global financial mess we are in, now magically solve those problems???

Put simply, they can't.

Have a look at Obama's economic appointees, and you will see the exact same profile and scarily even the exact same Curriculum Vitae as everyone else who has ever worked in a top economic or financial role, in government or corporate circles.

Obama's appointees have all worked for the same companies and financial institutions as previous cabinet members who served in the Bush administrations, Clinton administration, Regan administration and so on. Moreover, they represent the same old way of thinking, and they are committed to the same capitalist, consumerist, globalised economic model that is currently falling down around our ears.

This is a bad economic system, which provides short-term gain for the few, and long-term misery for the many. The consumerist economy is fuelled by individual greed and the wholesale consumption of the earth's natural resources. It is chronically imbalanced, unsustainable, and was bound to fail.

However, with their recapitalisation programs, and multi-billion-dollar bank bailouts, US and European governments seem to think the solution to the collapse of capitalism is to inject more capital, and the solution to the collapse of consumerism is to stimulate more consuming. What is needed now, is not more of the same, but new ideas and new policies. If we are to enter an enlightened age, then we need enlightened politicians and enlightened economists to lead us there. I don't see them in Obama's team so far.

I hope I'm wrong about Obama. I hope he is true to the mandate of 'change' on which he was elected, and I hope the huge energy of 'hope' that so many people around the world have invested in him is enough to carry him, and all of us, through these very troubled times.

I hope so.

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Response...

GIVING OBAMA THE BENEFIT OF THE DOUBT - 01/12/2008

It is true that nothing apparently seems to have changed, but if we give Obama the benefit of the doubt he is treading very dangerous waters and has to play an extremely careful and diplomatic role with his cabinet. As he said it starts with combining experience with fresh thinking.

When asked by the press where the change would come from, Obama boldly said "me". And with a Hanuman locket on him, a picture of Ghandi in his office, books on his mentor Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King as well as now a photo of Swami in his wallet, I am confident that he knows how to bring about the change in his government and think he is the lion to lead America out of its current crisis.

He himself understands poverty and has an international background and I believe he is the character that is going to use the system to change the system - but slowly, surely and strategically.