Started Off at Naked Capitalism Revolving Door Continues then fell through the comments to wind up at the more important and illuminating treatment found at The New Republic The Most Important Wikileak Revelation.
New Republic | The
wing of the Democratic Party concerned about personnel decisions made
its opinion known almost two years ago. Dan Geldon, now chief of staff
to Senator Elizabeth Warren, met with Dan Schwerin, a top adviser to
Clinton’s campaign, in January 2015. According to an email follow-up
with Podesta and others, Geldon “was intently focused on personnel
issues, laid out a detailed case against the Bob Rubin school of
Democratic policy makers.” He was also “very critical of the Obama
administration’s choices.”
The
“Bob Rubin school” is named for the former top executive at Goldman
Sachs and Citigroup and first Clinton administration Treasury secretary.
It is composed precisely of the kinds of Democrats that the Warren wing
opposes on domestic policy, particularly on financial matters. In the
Obama administration, that school won out. Froman, chief of staff to
Rubin at Treasury, gave options for Treasury secretary that ranged from
Rubin himself to Summers and Geithner, two of his key protégés. In
another 2008 email
Rubin imagined for himself a “Harry Hopkins” position in the Obama
administration, referring to Franklin Roosevelt’s top adviser.
The
Rubin school dictated the Obama administration’s light-touch policy on
bank misconduct (which resulted in no serious legal or fiduciary
consequences for the major players) and its first-term approach to the
financial crisis (which was defined by a stimulus package that even at
the time was criticized for being woefully inadequate, as well as a
premature turn to budget-cutting). These are exactly the flaws that
Geldon, Warren’s emissary, stressed. According to Schwerin, he “spoke
repeatedly about the need to have in place people with ambition and
urgency who recognize how much the middle class is hurting and are
willing to challenge the financial industry.”
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