Barack Obama is set to announce that his Treasury Secretary will be the current President of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York Tim Geithner. Obama will also announce that former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers will be his director of the National Economic Council and his senior economic advisor. Apparently Summers will be set to replace Ben Bernanke as Federal Reserve Chairman in 2010. I had expected that Geithner would be in line for Fed Chairman and Summers would go to Treasury but I am not complaining about these picks. These two bring a lot of brain power and policy experience to deal with the economic mess that Obama will inherit.
Now, what would really make my day is if Austan Goolsbee is tapped to head the Council of Economic Advisors. Goolsbee makes economics fun for us laypeople. Not only does Goolsbee have the most entertaining sounding name in economics, he also is the master of the smackdown. To wit:
Barack, give Goolsbee a job!
He did a good job on MTP today, as well. Very entertaining gentleman indeed. The most importnat piece is he is represnetative of what we should expect the next four (eight?) years – clear communication unfettered by special interests.
red, Goolsbee didnt get head of CEA 🙁
But there is still hope – we may see more economic appointments tomorrow. I vote for all Goolsbee all the time.
Goolsbee will be director of President’s Economic Recovery Advisory Board that Obama just formed. Volker will chair the board.
Not bad, heh?
Jasper, I am officially opening the unofficial Austan Goolsbee Economics Smackdown Fan Club! 🙂