The Obamasphere: Economic Policy

PAUL VOLCKER
Longtime chairman of the Federal Reserve under Presidents Carter and Reagan, Volcker is now serving as chairman of the newly formed Economic Advisory Board. This 6-foot-7 avid fly-fisherman and farmers’ rights advocate once had protesting farmers park their tractors on C Street during a demonstration in the early ’80s.


MICHAEL FROMAN
Another Harvard Law School classmate of Obama’s, this CitiInsurance president and CEO has spent the majority of his career at the Treasury Department. In addition to his monumental fundraising prowess, Froman is a policy wonk, and a passionate environmentalist.


LARRY SUMMERS
The former Harvard president and Clinton treasury secretary was one of Obama’s key advisers as the economic crisis unfolded, and will join his administration as head of the National Economic Council. His fans are hoping he will be able to avoid the various “hot button controversies” that have embroiled him in the past.


CHRISTINA ROMER
This Berkeley Economics professor is an expert on tax cuts and recession-era policy, which will come in handy as chairman of Obama’s Council of Economic Advisors. Married to fellow Berkeley Econ professor David Romer, the couple shares a seat on the six-person panel that determines when recessions begin and end.


ROBERT RUBIN
A lauded treasury secretary under Clinton and now former director of Citigroup, Rubin’s protégés fill many of the ranks in the new administration’s economic teams. Rubin attended Harvard Law for three days before packing his bags for a trip around the world. He ended up earning a J.D. from Yale instead.


GENE SPERLING
Sperling has held high-level economic policy positions through numerous administrations and was chief economic advisor to Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign. He served as national economic adviser to President Clinton and director of the National Economic Council. Sperling was a consultant for the television show, “The West Wing.”


JASON FURMAN
Being known as a centrist with close ties to Robert Rubin caused many union officials and liberals to question the wisdom of Furman’s inclusion in Obama’s economic inner circle. Furman is parodied on the Glenn Beck Program as Obama advisor “Honkey Whitesville,” a recurring call-in guest.


DANIEL TARULLO
The Georgetown Law professor and senior fellow at CAP joined Obama’s team in 2006, having previously worked for Bill Clinton as his go-to guy on international economic policy. Tarullo is a vocal advocate on the need for tighter financial regulation, and has been tapped for membership in the Fed’s board of governors.


ERIC SCHMIDT
This Google co-founder, tech pioneer and member of Obama’s economic advisory council can at times seem to contradict himself. On one hand he believes in the power of small, innovative, high-tech companies to create the middle-class of the future; on the other, his fortunes are tied to one of the behemoths of the tech world.


AUSTAN GOOLSBEE
The political centrist, lauded for making economic and business accessible, has been an economic advisor to Obama and will serve as Volcker’s staff director and chief economist of the President’s Ecoomic Recovery Advisory Board. A tough debater while at Yale, explaining human behavior through economics is Goolsbee’s forte.


LAURA TYSON
The first female dean of the London Business School, chair of the Council of Economic Advisors under Clinton, and former director of the National Economic Council, has been outspoken in her support for the handling of the financial crisis by Democratic leadership. During her tenure at LBS, she founded the Centre for Women in Business.


WARREN BUFFETT
Obama said the name Warren Buffett so often during the last months of his campaign that it rivaled Sarah Palin’s overuse of “maverick” as a drinking game. The world’s richest man ($62 billion), who served as finance advisor to the Governator, spends twelve hours a week playing bridge, often with Bill Gates.


NANCY KILLEFER
Former CFO and COO at the Dept. of Treasury, Killefer will serve as the chief performance officer for the Obama administration. The Vassar and MIT grad served as a senior director in the D.C. office of McKinsey and served as chairperson of the IRS Oversight Board, a public-private entity akin to a corporate board.


MELLODY HOBSON
An Obama bundler, Chicago-native and George Lucas’s main squeeze, Hobson is currently president of Ariel Investments, LLC, a Chicago investment firm managing $7 billion in assets. A regular Good Morning America contributor on finance, she often tops lists of women to watch.


JAMIE DIMON
Current CEO and chairman of JPMorgan Chase, Dimon contributed nearly $500,000 to Democrats over the past decade. Known as a Wall Street dynamo—he rescued Bank One Corp. and brought J.P. Morgan back to life after its painful merger with Chase Manhattan—Dimon will have clout in Washington despite not being chosen as treasury secretary.


LAEL BRAINARD
Tapped as undersecretary for economic affairs, Brainard is currently vice president and director of global economy and development at Brookings, a professor at MIT, and former White House deputy national economic adviser under Clinton. Her focus is competitiveness, trade, international economics, U.S. foreign assistance and global poverty.


JOSH GOTBAUM
An investment banker and an official in the treasury department under Clinton, Gotbaum served as court-appointed trustee of Hawaiian Airlines when the airline was in bankruptcy. He led Obama’s treasury department transition team.




JOSH STEINER
Founder and managing principal of NYC private investment firm, Quadrangle Group, which invests in media and communications companies in the U.S. and Europe, Steiner was chief of staff of the treasury department in the Clinton Administration and came into national news as a result of the Whitewater investigations.


MARNE LEVINE
Marne Levine served as Lawrence Summers’ chief of staff during his tenure as president of Harvard University. She will continue in that role now that her former boss takes the reins at the White House National Economic Council. The Ohio native took on a role of her own as a member of the transition’s economic and trade team.


MICHAEL WARREN
The Rhodes Scholar, and  managing director of Stonebridge International, Warren, a former Clinton White House official, served on Obama’s treasury department transition team. He previously served as executive director of the White House National Economic Council.


AUDREY CHOI
The only Korean-American on Obama’s transition team, Choi served, at the age of 30, as chief of staff for the White House Council of Economic Advisers and domestic policy advisor to Vice President Gore during the Clinton Administration. The White House fellow is a former Wall Street Journal correspondent.


JIM ROOSEVELT
FDR’s grandson and the head of Tufts Health Plan, a Massachusets-based HMO, Roosevelt was formerly associate commissioner for retirement policy of the social security administration under Clinton. He is currently chief legal counsel for the Mass. Democratic Party and co-chair of the DNC’s rules and bylaws committee.


MARY SCHAPIRO
A former commissioner of the SEC, Schapiro is poised to assume the chairmanship of the embattled securities watchdog group as its first permanent female chairwoman. A former chair of the Commodities Futures Trading Commission under Clinton, Schapiro was first appointed by President Reagan, and holds a law degree from George Washington U.


SYLVIA MATTHEWS BURWELL
Picked by the Wall Street Journal as one of The 50 Women to Watch 2005 world wide, Burwell is currently president of the global development program of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. The West Virginia native previously worked at the Office of Management and Budget.


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