I don’t know enough about economics to have much of an opinion about the likely selection of Gene Sperling to replace Larry Summers at the National Economic Council. On balance, I don’t think that the million he got for doing quasi-charitable stuff for Goldman Sachs is particularly damning.
Nevertheless, I find the debate over his selection depressing. Felix Salmon is persuasive (even if I’m not completely convinced) as the loudest voice against Sperling. This has made Slate editor-in-chief Jacob Weisberg — who co-authored a book with Bob Rubin himself — so angry that he’s using the David Brooks-style all-caps made-up phrase “Main Street Puritans” to attack Sperling’s critics. He sneers:
I suppose that in a perfect world, officials would be members of a flagellant order, coming to Washington from their monastic cells and reaffirming their vows of poverty afterward. But that wouldn’t work, either, because economic policymakers would have no feel for markets, business, or life in the real world.
That’s what it’s all about when Bob Rubin takes a $100 million from Citigroup after being Treasury Secretary, it’s about maintaining a feel for markets.
Oh, the sacrifices our Galtian overlords make to better serve their undeserving countrymen!
Shalimar
I initially read that as unemployed countrymen. Which means it’s time for bed, my eyes are blurry.
beltane
“Main Street Puritans”? What an asshole.
How does “Wall Street Cavaliers” sound?
’cause you know, you’re either a flagellant or you’re a banksta’. One or the other, nothing else.
What an asshole.
General Stuck
I think we need to hire The Harlem Globetrotters for Obama’s economic council, or whatever. Let the firebaggers chew on that one for a while.
WarMunchkin
I’d like to express sadness that doing charitable work for the poor is the standard for being left-of-center now. One of the oddest things about what I’ve read in defense of Sperling was the idea that because he’s spent considerable time advocating for the poor, it qualifies him as a liberal. I guess that makes sense, but it just strikes me as depressing that we’ve now taken the idea that conservatives don’t care for poor people as an external parameter. A long time ago it might have been the idea that everyone cares for the poor, but they have different ideas about combating poverty.
de stijl
@General Stuck:
The Washington Generals would be the more quixotic choice.
Mike Kay (Chief of Staff)
the left are seconds away from saying, “are you now or have you ever been a member of goldman sachs?”
celticdragonchick
O/T
I can’t fucking believe this one. The NYT and Balko are carrying it also.
U.S. citizen abducted, tortured in Kuwait, now denied entry back into the U.S., all with no explanation.
Read and start asking the fucking qustions that need to be asked.
Hedges Ahead
So are these the Terrible Events? The Third Sack? We are a parallel earth to the one in Anathem, after all. The Monastic order of Scientists doesn’t sound like such an awful thing. Our anti-science folks would sure like the intellectuals sequestered like in a Stephenson novel.
beltane
@WarMunchkin: I used to know Republican attorneys who regularly did pro bono work. That was in the early 90’s, a long-gone era. We have become a society of sociopaths. I hope I survive long enough to read some future The Proud Tower, and explain to my great-grandchildren how the evil Galtians destroyed a once great country.
General Stuck
@de stijl:
Yep, permanent losers, that would fuck with their heads.
geg6
Well, since Obama has done nothing but kiss up to our Galtian overlords the last few weeks, I would hardly expect him to pick someone more like Elliott Spitzer. And I honestly don’t think he has any choice but to do whatever he can to make those sick, whiny ass titty babies think he is kowtowing to them as they have explicitly said they are perfectly willing to keep hoarding their piles of profits rather than investing in employees, physical capital, and R&D to punish us all for not being suficiently grateful that they haven’t starved us all yet.
The Sheriff's A Ni-
@geg6:
Because we need fewer guys bending over to corporate whores and more guys bending over actual whores.
dr. bloor
@Mike Kay (Chief of Staff):
Can you actually make a positive case for Sperling, or do you exist solely to point and laugh at folks who might be concerned that Obama’s surrounding himself with guys like Sperling and Daley?
beltane
@dr. bloor: You’re either with Goldman Sachs or you’re with the firebaggers.
Mark S.
@dr. bloor:
Hahahahahahahahahahahahah!
You asked Mike Kay that?
geg6
@The Sheriff’s A Ni-:
I don’t know if you’re being sarcastic or not, but yes. Since I really don’t have a problem with the world’s oldest profession (as long as it’s not public money being used) and don’t give a crap about marriage either (don’t believe in it; never did it; would never do it even under the threat of death), Spitzer’s dalliance matters not one bit to me. Larry Summers, Bob Rubin, Gene Sperling are bigger and much more contemtable whores than that woman Spitzer paid for some good, clean fun.
Mike Kay (Chief of Staff)
@dr. bloor: yes, I, Howard Dean, and Robert Reich have conspired to make the left look bad on Daley/Sperling.
I guess the question for you is what is the case against sperling, other than guilt by association.
Sad to all the left has left is neo-McCarthyism.
Mike Kay (Chief of Staff)
@Mark S.: you’re violating my trademark by posting “Hahahahahahahahahahahahah!” without my expressed permission.
dr. bloor
@Mike Kay (Chief of Staff):
Yeah, I didn’t think so.
Mike Kay (Chief of Staff)
@dr. bloor: yup, I knew you didn’t have anything but guilt by association. priceless. you’ve become what you once hated.
El Cid
__
Momentarily leaving behind any substantive or even directly related discussion of Sperling himself, etc…
…Let’s say someone raises the point that they don’t like that so many people connected to, say, Goldman Sachs or other of the largest Wall Street investment firms.
Maybe the substance of that complaint is sensible, or not.
But since when would the choice be between an individual being paid about $1 million from GS and from speeches to Wall Street investor groups, and one who comes from a monastic cell with vows of poverty?
Is that really fucking it in the modern punditariat mind?
You’ve got people with relatively high to very high level positions at Goldman Sachs — again, something which might be fine as far as their policies, or not — and then you have, what, impoverished monks — and there’s nothing in the entire fucking country between the two?
It’s simply that either an individual has worked with the largest Wall Street investment firms or has just crawled out of a meditation cave?
Where the fuck is a sense of scale here? Do these pundits think that there are zero people between the GS level and the starving monk level who might have anything to say about national economic policy?
General Stuck
OT
I think this is a splendid appointment, and something sorely needed for military service members, whose low pay makes them susceptible to predatory lenders. In this case, maybe our Galtian overlords got the short stick.
And yes, she is the wife of Gen Petraeus. Thank you Obama and dems for creating this important bureau, even though it was a mega sellout, yadda yadda yadda
Suffern ACE
@El Cid:
Sadly, it is possible that that is the case. It is very possible that the country has no one capable of being an economic policy leader who hasn’t been paid by one of the banks or the Fed. We might actually have a very thin bench.
Mike Kay (Chief of Staff)
@General Stuck: ABC evening news did a nice segment on her wednesday.
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/holly-petraeus-wife-gen-david-petraeus-run-obama/story?id=12540592
eemom
not Bowie’s best, imo — but your ability to plumb the depths of obscure lyrics for apropos post titles never ceases to impress.
And I TOTALLY get over it the 2.67% or so of the time I don’t recognize one.
lol
@celticdragonchick:
It’s awesome how Greenwald uses the same belittling “obsession” rhetoric to describe Obama’s pursuit of Al-Awlaki that Republicans used to describe Clinton’s pursuit of Bin Laden during the 90s.
Even when he’s got a solid story, Greenwald can’t resist going down the full retard path.
MikeJ
Ok yeah, but when did Ovation start carrying Firefly?
amk
@dr. bloor: All the concern trolling coming from clueless firebaggers and poutrage progressives doesn’t make it a concern. The guy is just an enforcer, not formulator of policy.
AAA Bonds
I believe economic policymakers should usually be academics with proven records of constructive criticism of private actors. Their work should engage with movers and shakers in the market, but it shouldn’t proceed from them.
It’s not a universal prescription for all times and places, but right now, we certainly need it.
AAA Bonds
@Mike Kay (Chief of Staff):
I am 100% unironically non-sarcastically okay with this. The company should be dissolved and most of its principals should be arrested and put on trial.
pointer
I thought Scheiber’s defense quite good, actually. Sperling has a long history of advocating for a specific solution to poverty: educating young girls kn developing countries. Goldman offered him a lot of money to do just that. If someone offers you pots of money to do some good in the world, are you going to turn to them and say, no you’re arseholes? Or perhaps, sure i’ll do it but only at nonprofit salaries. Come on.
Meanwhile, Felix Salmon put his thumb on the tack when he said:
As ever, the man’s gotta walk a fine line.
Mike Kay (Chief of Staff)
@AAA Bonds: yeah, that wouldn’t work, because all academics love free trade.
amk
@Mike Kay (Chief of Staff): LOL.
burnspbesq
I don’t think very much of Weisberg’s rhetoric, which is way over the top. That said, Salmon’s critique of Sperling is way off base.
The revolving door is win-win. The government gets the services of people who, frankly, are far more qualified than the average government lifer. Smart, ambitious people make short-term financial sacrifices to serve the American people while learning the system, and then monetize that knowledge.
Who knows, maybe tax lawyers are a non-random sample, more ethical than society at large. But everybody I know in my world who has spun the revolving door was completely dedicated to their IRS or Treasury jobs while they were in them. The logrolling that Salmon imagines, and that some of y’all believe in with near-theological intensity, does not happen in my world.
Yutsano
@burnspbesq:
I’ve heard from not just you that those who used to work in the IRS enjoyed it immensely but the opportunities in the private sector are just too sweet to pass up. In fact I’ve actually heard that that once I get two years what I’m doing under my belt I could go to a tax law firm and make over twice what I am now. I probably won’t for several personal reasons but the opportunity is there should I want to take it. And if I left I could come back to just about any position in the federal government rather easily just by virtue of my experience.
BTW this will crack you up, but the VA just poached another of my co-workers. That’s three since I started.
bobbyp
“…..because economic policymakers would have no feel for markets, business, or life in the real world.”
OK. I’m stumped. Name one current policymaker who does have this feel. Well, OK….name two.
Uloborus
@celticdragonchick:
Okay.
How exactly is this linked to us? I mean, seriously? No, ‘it would make sense’ does not count.
Why ISN’T the state department trying to get him out? Has anyone asked? Presumably they have a reason. Ah, I see his lawyer has. What did they answer? Greenwald doesn’t seem to think it’s important.
Why does Greenwald not feel that it’s important to mention that Anwar al-Awlaki is basically wanted and hated by every major Islamic government as a rebel and a terrorist? What IS Kuwait’s specific interest in Anwar al-Awlaki? Why do they think this guy knows him? How does that change the delicate diplomatic dance that occurs every time an American citizen is imprisoned in another country?
Again, does Greenwald have any evidence at all, period, that this was set up by the US government? Because the point he uses this as evidence to drill home is that the US government, presumably with Obama complicit, is deliberately detaining and torturing people illegally.
Let me be clear: I’m shocked and horrified by this incident. I’m just peeved that this instead of running with ‘What can we do to free a US citizen in a bad situation overseas?’ this article’s focus is ‘This PROVES that Obama is secretly torturing people!’
Suffern ACE
@bobbyp: Hmmmm. Maybe the rule should be that if you are going to leave government service and end up at a think tank, financial firm of any sort, lobbying, anything but writing your memoirs, you need to first appear on an episode of “Undercover Policymaker” or “Dirty Jobs” before you can accept a new position in government.
Villago Delenda Est
@burnspbesq:
You know, if there were rock solid ethics in the world of Wall Street, this wouldn’t be an issue.
But as we’ve seen over the last 10 years, “business ethics” is one of those oxymorons, like “corporate responsibility”. An afterthought. Worship of profit is all that is important…other values, like service to customers, to investors, to employees…all come in a distant second, at best, by law. Creating the illusion of profit is even more important than the real thing, which leads to accountancy scams. “I’ll be gone, you’ll be gone” when someone raises a question about what happens when moral hazard (someone calling a shot with no fear of living with any negative consequences of that call) becomes the way things are.
Xenos
@burnspbesq: From a similar perspective of tax professionals, I would corroborate this. But this is not very apposite – the problems of revolving doors are not the ones between the big four (and law firms) and the IRS, but between congressional committee staffs and K street, between the Pentagon and the arms manufacturers, the Treasury Dept and Wall Street.
CPAs and lawyers (in tax practice, at least) work more like private regulators than as principals with a vested interest in corrupting the system of governance. Ever meet a CEO or a banker who had to swear an oath to follow the laws and support the constitution?
freelancer
It’s quiet. A little too quiet...
Yutsano
@freelancer: More of an emmentaler than a gorgonzola there. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. :)
NobodySpecial
@amk: The point is, part of the reason we’re in the fix we’re in is because the people who are supposed to enforce policy didn’t. If you’re 100% sure this guy is actually going to do his job, then you’re not thinking. He may do it, but being wary of who runs things is important.
polyorchnid octopunch
@celticdragonchick: Sounds a lot like what happened to Abousfian Abdelrazik, a Canadian citizen that spent (a long) time in Somalia. It took the Supreme Court of Canada’s intervention to force the federal government to repatriate him, despite the very clear wording in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms that Canadians were never to be prevented from returning to Canada.
Yutsano
@polyorchnid octopunch: Pfft. What’s a little charter next to Harper’s need of showing he’s a tough guy just like Dubya was?
(Seriously, why the fuck is he still your PM? I know the Liberals are incompetent boobs right now but jeez you’d think Ignateff and Layton would wake up by now and form a fucking coalition already.)
polyorchnid octopunch
@Yutsano: Ignatieff and Layton between them are one short of the seats necessary to form a majority block in the HoC. This would be manageable (the Bloc has said they’ll play ball, whilst not being part of a coalition), but Ignatieff and the Libs are, as you said, incompetent boobs right now. The “traitorous for considering working with the evil so called lists in the NDP and the separatists in the bloc” meme has them running scared.
They don’t realise it, but I think the Libs are seriously damaging themselves with their actions over the last couple of years. Right now, they are at real risk of losing this riding… Milliken (Speaker of the House) is retiring and while the Cons have no chance of taking this riding after the Prison Farms clusterfsck, I suspect that the Dipper (Dan Beals) has a real chance of taking this riding. More generally, I’m expecting a spring election, probably shortly after the budget gets dropped in March.
Another part of what’s going on with all of this is that the US right wing has been pouring a lot of money into Canada to help out the Cons, with the expected results, such as the flooding of comments on news articles etc with insane reactionaries. There has also been a lot of effort put into destroying the RCMP and OPP by changing their culture; witness the complete stoopidity of what happened at the G20. About the only good thing about the G20 fiasco is that the Cons have lost an entire generation in Ontario.
Pooh
@burnspbesq:
I’m sorry, but this defense doesn’t begin to pass the scratch and sniff test.
Yutsano
@polyorchnid octopunch:
Did a quick Google on him, I think personally you could do worse. Seems to have a good grasp of the local issues and he’s not a Con. I know it would be Layton’s wet dream for the NDP to be the true opposition party, but I just don’t see that happening any time soon. Still a lot of old money in the Libs being washed around.
Which leads me to…
How the fuck is this not illegal? Granted, until the idiotic Citizens United decision, that much influence down here would create a shitstorm and make a ton of lawyers rich. That and it needs to be publicized early and often that this is happening. Unless it’s one of those open secret things that folks just accept and shouldn’t.
PS I’d gladly keep this convo going as I haven’t had a good Canadian political discussion since I broke up with my ex but I gotta hit the hay. Rain check on this?
polyorchnid octopunch
@Yutsano: Actually, Ted Hsu (the liberal candidate) is a good guy too; I know his brother really as we’re both musicians (Bobby’s a sax player, I’m a guitarist; we’ve jammed at various times over the last twenty years). However, the simple fact is that Dan’s out campaigning hard in the way that works best; he’s out knocking on doors and introducing himself to the constituents. I think it was Laurier that said “elections are won on the doorstep” and Dan’s taken that advice to heart (which he got from me, btw; we both drink at the same watering hole).
As an aside, I have to say that I’m pretty irked that I have to refer to Dan as a so called list and/or a kom yew nist here… while American irrationality makes those terms radioactive (along with the word liberal, which has a different definition in the US from the Rest Of The English Speaking World) they are in fact very useful terms and should be pulled from the spam filter.
As for the wingnut welfare, it’s being laundered through Manning’s Centre for Democracy in Calgary and other similar stink tanks, mostly. It’s a private foundation, with private donors, and speech is protected in this country. The talking points are funnelled through http://bloggingtories.ca, which is a joke as one thing that’s sure is that those people aren’t Tories. It’s how they get the word out without donating directly to the party in question, as that would be illegal here. After I learned that they were getting a lot of money from the Koch’s etc I pretty much wrote Manning off and became very happy that he never actually got close to real power. It’s too bad… at one time I thought he actually had principles. Now I think he’s just an aging fascist who fell just short of the brass ring and is now riding the wingnut welfare gravy train.
As for the old money sloshing around to the Liberals, Chretien put paid to that with his campaign finance law back in 2004 or thereabouts.
polyorchnid octopunch
@Yutsano: …and as for the rain check, absolutely. I have to get to bed too… I had to get up at three because one of our production systems shit itself and our watchdog alerted me. My kids are going to be up in a couple of hours and I should get some more downtime before I have to make ’em brekkie. I think that the left in the US should spend some time talking to us up here in the Great White North; we’ve historically been far more successful up here than you guys have been down there, and mutual attention would probably serve us well.
Actually, while I’m at it, I wouldn’t mind having a chance to yak with Svensker as well; he’d be interested to know that Rosie’s bookshop recovered quite well from the damage from the ’98 Ice Storm and is once again full to bursting with books; I dunno if he saw the comment I made to that effect in the ice storm thread from a day or so before the new year. I’m kind of hoping he makes his way back here to K-town from time to time so I can take him out for a drink.
Pat
For 2011, I have resolved to believe my lying eyes. It makes trying to figure out the Obama presidency so much easier. Then there is that saying about first impressions: again when it comes to Obama’s picks go with the first impression.
These two picks tell me that if Obama loses in 2012, he has set himself up nicely to waltz right over to a Wall Street job when his gig in the West Wing is up.
PIGL
@burnspbesq: offers a fine definition of “corruption”:
In other words, they make no “sacrifice” at all….they just go under cover for a short while.
PIGL
@polyorchnid octopunch: this, exactly. We tolerate open subversion from the right. And it is working.
Sko Hayes
@Pat:
Good lord, as if being president of the United States wasn’t enough of a “star” on one’s resume?
Ash Can
@Pat: Sure, as a constitutional law professor and community organizer, he’d be a perfect fit.
What would they have him doing, leading book discussions? Of course, there’s always the possibility, I suppose, that Wall Street execs dumb enough to tank their own companies would think nothing of hiring someone with little to no experience in their industry.
Hawes
Sperling is a great choice, one of the few progressive finance guys out there.
He was one of the few Clinton era finance guys to give a fuck about the poor, and we’re supposed to hate him because Goldman wanted him to spend their money on a program he designed to help poor women in the developing world?
Really?
I hate me some Goldman, but not that much.
rickstersherpa
Sperling’s Goldman connection is bad political optics, as is Daley’s J.P. Morgan gig, but it really is something of a non-sequitor, the kind of mega-meme “good guy” “bad guy” narrative that our modern “journalists” love to construct rather than discuss that boring policy stuff.
I am not an economist either, but I have been reading a lot of blogs and books the last few years by John Quiggin (along with Steve Keen, the founders of what I call “Australian Economics as oppoesd to “Austrian”), Dean Baker, Jaimie Galbraith, Bill McBride (Calculated Risk), Mark Thoma, Tim Duy, Mike Kimel, Bruce Webb, and Linda Beale (the last three blog at Angry Bear), Yves Smith, Brad DeLong, and Joseph Stiglitz. So I kind of have idea of why progressives might have doubts about Mr. Sperling and his association with what Peter Dorman of Econospeak (joined there by the economically incorrect Mike Perelman and Barkley Rosser) calls the “finance interest,” and Gene Sperling’s point of view and ideas are informed by his membership in that interest and its group think. As Dorman states, “The process is more complicated: where one sits in society and the kinds of problems one typically has to solve leads to a way of thinking, and this manner of thinking then informs politics. For centuries, the finance perspective has played a central role in economic theorizing, and there is ordinarily a body of research to support it. What I am proposing is this: economic orthodoxy is regaining control over policy because it reflects the outlook of those who occupy the upper reaches of government and business.”
And how does this work out in specific policies that affects individuals in West Virginia and Ohio? Well the “strong dollar policy” and the NAFTA and WTO trade agreements with the admission of China to the WTO in 1999 created a long recession in U.S. manufacturing from 1999 to 2010 and underinvestment, which is only now starting to end due to the decline of the dollar. And this lead to factories closing and jobs leaving West Virginia and Ohio and no new ones being built or modernized. The exchange rate almost made it an economic imperative to shift investment in R&D, manufacturing, and production to China and away from the U.S. (and for that matter, Mexico, which of course, along with the housing bubble’s boom in residential construction, led to large numbers of young Mexicans and Central Americans coming her to work). These policies also led to a vast over investment in residential and commercial real estate, hence the thousands of empty homes across Florida, Arizona, and Neveda, and “dead malls” across the country.
Sperling, along with Rubin, Summers, and Geithner, as Dean Baker explains, was one of the principal architects of these policies that led to these results.
“I will depart from my policy of not commenting on articles where I am mentioned to clarify the issues (to me) surrounding Gene Sperling’s selection as a President Obama’s national economic advisor. The primary issue is not that Sperling got $900,000 from Goldman Sachs for part-time work, although that does look bad. The primary issue is that Sperling thought, and may still think, that the policies that laid the basis for the economic collapse were just fine.
Sperling saw nothing wrong with the stock market bubble that laid the basis for the 2001 recession. The economy did not begin to create jobs again until two and a half years after the beginning of this recession and even then it was only due to the growth of the housing bubble. Gene Sperling also saw nothing wrong with the growth of that bubble. Gene Sperling also saw nothing wrong with the financial deregulation of the Clinton years which, by the way, helped make Goldman Sachs lots of money. And, he saw nothing wrong with the over-valued dollar which gave the United States an enormous trade deficit. This trade deficit undermined the bargaining power of manufacturing workers and helped to redistribute income upward.
In short, Sperling has a horrible track record of supporting policies that were bad for the country and good for Wall Street. This track record is far more important than his $900,000 consulting fee in providing my basis for objecting to Sperling’s appointment. It is remarkable that it was not mentioned in this article.”
Having said all the above, will I still hope that Obama is reelected in 2012? Of course I will when I consider the alternative to having Gene Sperling as NEA chairperson is Douglas Holz-Eakin or Kevin Hassat, hacks extraordinaire. Still, I hope some day to have someone ask Sperling about that track record and see if he responds with something other than “hoocoodanode.”
Smurfhole
I’ve heard worse ideas. Maybe the order of monks can be a secular order whose members take a vow of poverty for the nation’s health and spend their time studying economic theory and world markets instead of religious texts. Nothing says the flagellant order has to be religious. Maybe they’re the children of uber-patriotic parents who send them there at the age of 12 to incubate as the nation’s future economic leaders in an environment free from corruption but containing all the necessary educational tools to let them lead a corrupt world.
Let’s roll with this idea. Fuck it, why not? Call the bluff.
Uloborus
@Pat:
Once again, I go ‘dur?’ at a comment like this. By all means, believe your lying eyes. Believe them when they show you Wall Street funneling money heavily into the Republicans. Believe then when they show you finreg passing and Elizabeth Warren. Believe them when they quote the Wall Street tycoons bitching about how uppity Obama is.
They hate his guts over there. I guess it’s possible there are some old school (It’s have to be a pretty old school) long-term-thinking financiers out there who’d love to have his assistance, but he’s sure as Hell not maneuvering for a standard lobbyist job.
schrodinger's cat
@AAA Bonds: Many academics in finance believe these conservative theories, where do you think GOP got them in the first place. Most academics in finance inhabit the world of perfect markets. Where, demand = supply, all regulation is evil (including taxes), markets are efficient. Its the academics who have provided the fig leaf for dismantling the New Deal regulatory structure. I am sure you have heard of Milton Friedman and Lucas for example.
Joe
Here in Ohio, John Kasich talks about crushing the public employees unions because government workers are overpaid, but he can’t get the top advisors he wants because the state doesn’t pay enough. Of course, he paid his campaign staffers good money for 6 or 8 years to run his PACs. Assholes.
eemom
Is it too early to nominate this for stupidest comment of the year?
John Cole
@eemom: Not at all.