It seems like every Democrat has to have a Wall Street guy to run Treasury, out of fear the markets would get constipated. A problem is the dearth of people who know enough about financial markets who aren't implicated in them.
Patrick Bond wrote:
> Doug Henwood wrote:
>> Volcker wasn't really about dereg - he was about breaking inflation.
>
> Both. While he may have put brakes on Glass-Steagall erosion, that whole
> crew of bank regulators wanted to liberate S&Ls from mere mortgage
> lending and banks from consumer protection regulation (I was a bank
> regulator at the Fed in 1981 and 1983-85 and saw this firsthand). I
> don't think this "Encyclopedia of World Biography on Paul Volcker" is
> incorrect: "As chairman of the Federal Reserve Board during one of the
> most turbulent periods in U.S. monetary history, Paul Volcker helped
> lower double-digit inflation rates in the early 1980s and ushered in an
> era of financial deregulation and innovation."
>
>> ... And, as Leo Panitch has pointed out to you in our little
>> conversations, Volcker wasn't really an ideological neoliberal - he's
>> essentially a civil servant. Nor was he really a Wall Streeter - he
>> worked for Wolfie for a while, but he never got rich, and his whole
>> style is a lot more modest than that of a Goldman Sachs titan.
>
> I trust you (and Leo) on many many points, Doug. On this, though, I
> trust Stuart Eizenstat (a jerk opposed to apartheid victims' use of the
> Alien Tort Claims Act for reparations, though he did a deal with German
> companies and Swiss banks to shake down several billion dollars of
> reparations for Holocaust victims), explaining why Carter chose him as
> Fed chair in July 1979: "Volcker was selected because he was the
> candidate of Wall Street. This was their price, in effect. What was
> known about him? That he was able and bright. And it was also known that
> he was conservative. What wasn’t known was that he was going to impose
> some very dramatic changes." And then post-Fed he got rich working for
> Wolfie.
>
>
>
>
> ___________________________________
> http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk
>
>