Mike Allen's Politico Playbook is reporting that William Daley, "JPMorgan Chase's Midwest chairman" is a possible White House chief of staff for President Obama, while Gene Sperling, who made $887,727 in 2008 advising Goldman Sachs on its charitable giving, is the likely successor to Lawrence Summers as director of the National Economic Council.
Mr. Obama, speaking to "60 Minutes," in December 2009: "the people on Wall Street still don't get it. They don't get it. They're still puzzled, why is it that people are mad at the banks."
Either Mr. Daley or Mr. Sperling or both may be perfectly great as White House aides, and I don't believe that there should be a stigma attached to working for either Goldman or JPMorgan Chase. But given the size of the American population and the economy, and given what's happened over the past three years, might it be possible to staff the highest ranks of the government from somewhere other than Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan Chase?
The National Economic Council job doesn't require Senate confirmation, which means Mr. Sperling would not have to answer any questions from Senators such as "how many hours or days a week did you work for that $887,727?" "Did it ever occur to you that if you did the work for less than $887,727, there would be more money left over for the recipients of Goldman's charitable giving?" "Did you disclose to your editors at Bloomberg News that you were earning $887,727 a year from Goldman Sachs at the time when Bloomberg was paying you $11,458.33 a column, or, for an 800-word column, $14.32 a word, to write about topics such as the subprime housing crisis, which you blamed on "the failure of regulators and the Bush administration," rather than, say, the failure of Goldman Sachs?"