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Maybe Volcker wasn't exaggerating.
Volcker: 'Shameful' That Treasury is Understaffed
February 26, 2009 11:51 AM
ABC News' Matt Jaffe reports:
Sounding off on hiring problems that we reported earlier this week, a leading economic adviser to President Obama today said it was "shameful" that the "weak" Treasury Department is so understaffed that Secretary Tim Geithner is "sitting there alone".
"There is an area that I think is, I don't know, shameful is the word," Paul Volcker said this morning at a Joint Economic Committee hearing. "The Secretary of the Treasury is sitting there without a deputy, without any undersecretaries, without any, as far as I know, assistant secretaries responsible in substantive areas at a time of very severe crisis. He shouldn't be sitting there alone."
Volcker is chair of the President's Economic Recovery Advisory Board.
"Now various things have contributed to this, I guess, inlcuding vetting procedures, but it really is an unfortunate situation."
Volcker, former chair of the Federal Reserve, said that the Treasury has been "weakened" in recent years.
"It deserves some attention and rebuilding and new strength," he said.
"You can't be the leading economic power in the world with all the problems we have and have a weak Treasury," Volcker stated.
-- Matt Jaffe
Maybe Volcker wasn't exaggerating.
via TPM
If Tim Geithner is really all alone, nobody is there to regulate what reaches his unattended ear. Who all does Geithner turn to for support?
Additionally, Geithner will also attend a meeting with Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont.,Office of Management and Budget Director Peter Orszag and National Economic Council Director Larry Summers to discuss the new financial rescue plan Geithner unveiled earlier this week.
Thursday night, Geithner is slated to fly to Rome for the Group of Seven meetings.
Structure of the United States National Economic Council (2009)
Chair Barack Obama (President of the United States)
Director Lawrence Summers (Assistant to the President for Economic Policy)
Regular Attendees
Joe Biden (Vice President)
Hillary Rodham Clinton (Secretary of State)
Timothy Geithner (Secretary of the Treasury)
Tom Vilsack (Secretary of Agriculture)
vacant (Secretary of Commerce)
Hilda Solis (Secretary of Labor)
Shaun Donovan (Secretary of Housing and Urban Development)
Ray LaHood (Secretary of Transportation)
Steven Chu (Secretary of Energy)
Additional Participants
Lisa P. Jackson (Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency)
Christina Romer (Chair of the Council of Economic Advisers)
Peter Orszag (Director of the Office of Management and Budget)
Ron Kirk (United States Trade Representative)
Melody Barnes (Assistant to the President for Domestic Policy)
James L. Jones (Assistant to the President for National Security)
John Holdren (Assistant to the President for Science and Technology Policy)
Wall Street financier.
The New American take.
The Group of Thirty was started in 1978 by Geoffrey L. Bell, who has been affiliated with the U.S. Federal Reserve in a number of capacities, as well with Her Majesty's Treasury, and has a consultancy that advises central bankers and major corporations. He is a genuine insider's insider. Currently the Group of Thirty is headed by Paul A. Volcker, former Fed chairman, UN heavyweight and Barack Obama's current head economic adviser. Previous Group of Thirty luminaries include former Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan and a lengthy roster of international glitterati.
One of Geithner's compadres in the current iteration of the Group of Thirty is Lawrence Summers, former president of Harvard and former Treasury Secretary, former chief economist of the World Bank, and now Obama's National Economic Council director. Others include former Mexican president Ernesto Zedillo, honchos of international investment firms Goldman Sachs, Chase, Morgan Stanley, and heads of important central banks around the world, including those of China, India, Japan, Europe and South America.
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