Michael Froman, who is now U.S. trade representative but at the time was an executive at Citigroup, wrote an email to Podesta on October 6, 2008, with the subject “Lists.” Froman used a Citigroup email address. He attached three documents: a list of women for top administration jobs, a list of non-white candidates, and a sample outline of 31 cabinet-level positions and who would fill them. “The lists will continue to grow,” Froman wrote to Podesta, “but these are the names to date that seem to be coming up as recommended by various sources for senior level jobs.”
The cabinet list ended up being almost entirely on the money. It correctly identified Eric Holder for the Justice Department, Janet Napolitano for Homeland Security, Robert Gates for Defense, Rahm Emanuel for chief of staff, Peter Orszag for the Office of Management and Budget, Arne Duncan for Education, Eric Shinseki for Veterans Affairs, Kathleen Sebelius for Health and Human Services, Melody Barnes for the Domestic Policy Council, and more. For the Treasury, three possibilities were on the list: Robert Rubin, Larry Summers, and Timothy Geithner.
This was October 6. The election was November 4. And yet Froman, an executive at Citigroup, which would ultimately become the recipient of the largest bailout from the federal government during the financial crisis, had mapped out virtually the entire Obama cabinet, a month before votes were counted.
.. Many already suspected that Froman, a longtime Obama consigliere, did the key economic policy hiring while part of the transition team. We didn’t know he had so much influence that he could lock in key staff that early, without fanfare, while everyone was busy trying to get Obama elected. The WikiLeaks emails show even earlier planning; by September the transition was getting pre-clearance to assist nominees with financial disclosure forms.
.. 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.
.. The Rubin school dictated the Obama administration’s light-touch policy on bank misconduct
.. Peter Orszag this week suggested a trade-off: Give the Warren wing its choices on personnel, in exchange for more leeway to negotiate an infrastructure package with Republicans that gives big tax breaks to corporations with money stashed overseas.
One of the primary drivers of the campaign was an attempt to control the influx of refugees from the Middle East and Eastern Europe. And yet, the areas with the most immigrants, like London, tend to be much more in favor of remaining in the E.U., according to the center’s report.
.. The GOP, in putting Trump at the top of the ticket, is endorsing a brand of populism rooted in ignorance, prejudice, fear and isolationism. This troubles me deeply as a Republican, but it troubles me even more as an American. Enough is enough. It’s time to put country before party and say it together: Never Trump.
.. I can’t help but wonder what would have happened if a divisive character such as Trump were president during the 2008 financial crisis, at a time when leadership, compromise and careful analysis were critical. The only reason we avoided another Great Depression was because Republicans and Democrats joined together to vote for the Troubled Asset Relief Program — a vote that they knew would be politically unpopular but in the best interest of our country.
.. First, we need to maintain the United States’ fiscal strength by reforming entitlements. There’s no example of a nation continuing as a great power if its fiscal strength is lost. Anyone, whether Republican or Democrat, who has studied our entitlement programs and can do basic math knows they are unsustainable in their present form. If not fixed soon, they threaten our nation with a debt burden that would undermine the retirement security of young Americans and future generations. It doesn’t surprise me when a socialist such as Bernie Sanders sees no need to fix our entitlement programs. But I find it particularly appalling that Trump, a businessman, tells us he won’t touch Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.
.. Instead, we need to fix the programs that help U.S. industries and workers transition to new and better jobs. We need better training, new education programs and a more robust safety net. The policies Trump endorses would destroy, not save, U.S. jobs.
.. I will not vote for Donald Trump. I will not cast a write-in vote. I’ll be voting for Hillary Clinton, with the hope that she can bring Americans together to do the things necessary to strengthen our economy, our environment and our place in the world.
China is now a threat to the United States not because it is strong but because it is fragile.
.. The economy is now slowing and will decelerate further when the country is forced to reduce its debt burden, as inevitably it will be. The next step could be a deeper slowdown or even a financial crisis
.. If China were eating America’s lunch, its people would not be rushing to buy safe-haven apartments in New York or San Francisco. Far from conspiring to cheapen its currency, as Mr. Trump charges, Beijing is struggling to keep the weakening renminbi from falling more
.. Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy in the United States, tipping the global economy into recession. Demand collapsed across the world, crushing export growth in China. The leadership in Beijing panicked, apparently fearing that if the recession reached its shores, social unrest would follow.
.. Mr. Wen reversed course and doubled down on the old industrial model — fueling investment in factories with trillions in state lending and spending.
.. But this spree spread on conviction that Beijing, obsessed with hitting its growth target, would not let lenders or borrowers fail.
.. That 80-percentage-point increase is also more than three times the increase in the United States before its bubble collapsed in 2008.
.. It ordered people not to sell or even to speak critically of stocks.
.. The sputtering global economy is one shock away from slipping into recession. In the postwar period, every previous global recession started with a downturn in the United States, but the next one is likely to begin with a shock in China.