Is anyone beside myself wondering why Joseph Stiglitz and Nouriel Roubini are not part of Obama's recently announced economic team, which is heavily weighted toward Wall Street? [I would have added Paul Krugman, but he has become so overtly political, one can imagine why there would have been some fear in including him.]
These guys are NOT bomb-throwing radicals (Stiglitz is a Nobel Prize winner); and they ARE the among the most respected economists with the freshest, most thorough, most forward-looking outlooks. The fear prompted by their exclusion is that Obama is not as open as he professes to serious ideas from any sources, that he would become a captive of Wall Street and corporate interest (after all, even Rahm Emanuel made a bundle working on Wall Street), and that, consequently, he would not administer the bailout of the economy with some of the beneficial features which Gordon Brown and Barney Frank have advocated and insisted are available, which may be necessary to equitable administration and overall success, which Paulsen and Bernanke, with their Wall-Street-centrism, have eschewed, and which some, maybe even many, on the panel could also be expected to eschew.
UPDATE: I just wanted to express how impressed I am with the breadth and thoughtfulness of the Comments. Contrary to the minority of them who advocate the equivalent of giving Obama a break or the benefit of the doubt, I do not think that raising these questions should be seen as anything other than trying to help, and following Obama's own expressed value of inclusiveness. A diary today on the rec list noted the change in tone especially on Stephanopolous' program this morning. To me, the change was more that they were actually talking about something substantive that we could take seriously enough to think that, when they were wrong or failed to mention something seriously relevant, it would do some good to point this out to them - infected as I am with the spirit of this community. Anyhow, major Kudos to this community. May its development continue. May its tribe increase.