Like many of you, I got an email asking for money to cover the cost of the transition team. My reply:
""Dear David :
I already donated what for me is a substantial amount of money to Obama, despite swearing I would not after his FISA vote. Given that economic times are as tough as they are, I'm not inclined to give more.
I'm especially not inclined to give more money to a transition team which is full of Clinton retreads as this one appears to be. Why, for example, do I see Robert Rubin, who could quite reasonably be regarded as one of the architects of the mess we're in?
When I look at this list:
When I look at this list:
David Bonior (Member House of Representatives 1977-2003)
Warren Buffett (Chairman and CEO, Berkshire Hathaway)
Roel Campos (former SEC Commissioner)
William Daley (Chairman of the Midwest, JP Morgan Chase; Former Secretary, U.S. Dept of Commerce, 1997-2000)
William Donaldson (Former Chairman of the SEC 2003-2005)
Roger Ferguson (President and CEO, TIAA-CREF and former Vice Chairman of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve)
Jennifer Granholm (Governor, State of Michigan)
Anne Mulcahy (Chairman and CEO, Xerox)
Richard Parsons (Chairman of the Board, Time Warner)
Penny Pritzker (CEO, Classic Residence by Hyatt)
Robert Reich (University of California, Berkeley; Former Secretary, U.S. Dept of Labor, 1993-1997)
Robert Rubin (Chairman and Director of the Executive Committee, Citigroup; Former Secretary, U.S. Dept of Treasury, 1995-1999)
Eric Schmidt (Chairman and CEO, Google)
Lawrence Summers (Harvard University; Managing Director, D.E. Shaw; Former Secretary, U.S. Dept of Treasury, 1999-2001)
Laura Tyson (Haas School of Business, University of California, Berkeley; Former Chairman, National Economic Council, 1995-1996; Former Chairman, President's Council of Economic Advisors, 1993-1995)
Antonio Villaraigosa (Mayor, City of Los Angeles)
Paul Volcker (Former Chairman, U.S. Federal Reserve 1979-1987)
I think it's quite clearly a direction I do NOT want to go: a return to a blue-tinged venture capitalism which did its part in the 90s to widen the income gap through deregulation and what was the phrase again? Oh yes: "irrational exuberance."
Needless to say, this is not the "change" I voted for. I had hoped for some genuine innovation and rethinking, something more like actual change. Silly me! I still have some hopes for the Obama administration and he has my general, but now extremely skeptical support.
I'll save my money for making the mortgage payments, especially since my employer has announced that due to the budget crisis, we will get no raises this year."
UPDATE: Well a lot of people were kind enough to respond, thank you. Overall the response was about what I expected.Mostly hostile.
The idea that Obama "needs to get things done" by appointing people with experience keeps coming up, and it makes sense, but look at it this way. If you want to understand what's going on on a ship, talk to the CO, sure, but really you need to talk to the chiefs in the boiler room. Who knows more about how the Dept. of Justice works--the political appointee dropped in from above to head it who stayed for four years, or the career people who actually run it? If this was just about figuring out how to effectively run govt., there's a wide range of competant range of people between "clinton retreads" (my phrase) and "know-nothing college professors." DC is crammed full of people who know how government works--you don't need famous political appointees from admins past.
That's the problem, it's not really about "getting things done," it's about agenda setting. And the Agenda appears to be a DLC agenda, which is heartbreaking to me given how unbelievably screwed up the economy is at the moment.