A more legitimate complaint against the administration’s economic-policy team is that it shares similar moderately progressive positions, selectively balancing a pro-market view with greater governmental supervision. This is the Rubin school, and Geithner and Summers are charter members.
A Wall Street chief executive officer like Jamie Dimon of JPMorgan Chase & Co. has a direct pipeline to the White House. (That doesn’t awe White House security guards, who made Dimon repeat his name twice before admitting him to a meeting with Obama on Friday). Yet skeptics like Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz, a former top adviser in the Clinton administration, are shut out. Stiglitz says he’s only had a couple of e-mail exchanges with administration decision-makers since Obama’s Jan. 20 inauguration.
Volcker Kept Out
Even Paul Volcker, who espouses a tougher posture on regulation than Wall Street chieftains like, is kept out of major policy decisions, associates say. Volcker was named to head a White House economic advisory board, and then several of his choices for that board were vetoed by the White House.
Geithner Will Outlast AIG Outrage, Public Pounding
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=aCD4kw4I9XQ4
Volcker Chafes at Panel Delay, Clashes With Summers (Update1)
By Robert Schmidt and Julianna Goldman
Feb. 5 (Bloomberg) -- Paul Volcker has grown increasingly frustrated over delays in setting up the economic advisory group President Barack Obama picked the former Federal Reserve chairman to lead, people familiar with the matter said.
Volcker, 81, blames Obama’s National Economic Council Director Lawrence Summers for slowing down the effort to organize the panel of outside advisers, the people said. Summers isn’t regularly inviting Volcker to White House meetings and hasn’t shown interest in collaborating on policy or sharing potential solutions to the economic crisis, they said.
(...)
Outsider’s Disadvantage
The contretemps shows the difficulties Volcker, perhaps the world’s most respected economist, may encounter as an outside adviser charged with providing policy alternatives to the president, said William Silber, a finance professor at New York University’s business school.
Volcker “is not in the White House and he doesn’t have a bureaucracy to command,” Silber said. “It puts him at a disadvantage.”
After testifying at a congressional hearing yesterday, Volcker declined to respond to questions. His office said he doesn’t grant interviews.
Summers, in an interview, played down any conflict.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aaLzJZKNcc6Y&refer=homeThe PERAB was eventually chosen, but with a number of Volcker picks shot down by Summers (see above)
President's Economic Recovery Advisory Board
The PERAB is supposed to provide that ground-level sense, and Obama said that this mission will be reflected in the board's diverse membership, which will be announced over the next few weeks.<3> Paul Krugman, a Nobel laureate in economics and a noted progressive columnist, has argued that, given the centrist makeup of Obama's economic inner circle, the new board could be used to "give progressive economists a voice." He mentioned James K. Galbraith, Larry Mishel of the Economic Policy Institute, Dean Baker, and Jared Bernstein as progressive economists who might be suitable for the board. <4> Bernstein, however, was subsequently named to a full-time administration position as chief economist and economic policy adviser to Vice President Joe Biden. <5>
Don't see ANY of those suggested progressive names
on there either: (Biden did get Bernstein for his office.)
The President and Mr. Volcker announced the board's membership on February 6, 2009. Members include
* Jeffrey Immelt, General Electric chief executive
* James W. Owens, head of Caterpillar
* Robert Wolf, chairman and CEO of UBS Group Americas
* Mark T. Gallogly<7>, founder and managing partner at Centerbridge Partners L.P.<8>
* Penny Pritzker, chair and founder of Pritzker Realty Group and Classic Residence by Hyatt
* John Doerr, partner at Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield & Byers
* Monica C. Lozano<9>, publisher and CEO of La Opinion
* Charles E. Phillips, Jr., president of Oracle Corporation.
* Richard L. Trumka, secretary-treasury of the AFL-CIO
* Anna Burger, secretary-treasurer of the Service Employees International Union and chair of Change to Win.
* William H. Donaldson, former Securities and Exchange CoOmmission chairman
* Laura D'Andrea Tyson, professor at the Haas School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley
* Martin Feldstein, former chief economic advisor to President Ronald Reagan, economics professor,
and member of the Board of Directors of American International Group (AIG)<10>
* Roger W. Ferguson, Jr., chief executive of TIAA-CREF.
* David F. Swensen, CIO at Yale University<11>
According to a March 25, 2009 press briefing by OMB Director Peter Orszag, the administration has charged PERAB with proposing approaches to three budget related tasks: simplifying taxation, closing tax loopholes and reducing tax evasion, and reducing corporate welfare. <12>
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/President%27s_Economic_Recovery_Advisory_BoardThis is a two year Advisory Board. Big progressive economist names that keep coming up over and over aren't even in the OUTER circle.