Bloomberg News is reporting that Roger Altman is a leading candidate to take over from Lawrence Summers as chairman of President Obama's National Economic Council. Readers of this site may recall Mr. Altman's name from the post "Roger Altman's Unbelievable Gall," which reported on Mr. Altman's New York Times op-ed hailing President Obama's "courageous decision to put General Motors and Chrysler through bankruptcy."
The Times piece failed to disclose that Mr. Altman's firm, Evercore Partners, after being paid $46 million by GM pre-bankruptcy, turned around and asked for a $17.9 million "success fee." A U.S. bankruptcy trustee termed the fees "staggering" and "inordinately large" and said it "clearly exceeds the bounds of reasonableness" given that "Evercore had no success at finding a purchaser or funder for the Debtors."
Beyond that, it's something that a President who got himself elected promising "change" can come up with only a retread who served in both the Carter administration and Clinton administration Treasury departments. Sometimes it seems like decades go by and presidents change, but it's the same permanent cast of characters running Washington.
