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Wtf? Aren't these the type of guys who advised Bush & Cheney? The type of guys who will advise social spending cuts, interest rate hikes and more privatization? Will Obama pull a 180?
I'm interested to hear your precise problem with Volcker. He's 81, which I suppose could be an issue. Otherwise, he seems like a pretty reasonable choice - very experienced, and very well-respected by more or less everyone.
He is famous, I admit, for deliberately causing a recession through massive interest rate increases. It was an extremely controversial move at the time, but is much less so now, as it seems most people accept that it was both necessary and effective. I could be wrong about that, though. As for privatisation - what exactly do you see being privatised?
Volcker's probably most clearly differentiated from the present administration in his attitude to consumerism - he doesn't like it much. He also thinks it's important for governments to be able to control financial instituions. From here:
His concerns go to the very core of how America lives and how Wall Street operates. A child of the Great Depression and a man of legendary personal thrift, Volcker thinks Americans have been living above their means for too long. "It is the United States as a whole that became addicted to spending and consuming beyond its capacity to produce," ... Bringing consumption back in line with income would not only crimp individuals and families, but also require major readjustments in the global economy, which has relied on the U.S. as consumer of last resort.
Volcker has become a skeptic of modern Wall Street, worried that the nation's entire financial system has evolved to a point that the government no longer has effective control over all of its important components. And the financial industry has become beholden to complex financial engineering that clouds the picture.
Anyway, as I say I'm keen to hear the reasoning for your doubts about Volcker and the others (who I admit I know a lot less about). Who do you think would be better? |
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