Nobody should be surprised and few would oppose the selection of Paul Volcker as the next Secretary of the Treasury in an ‘Obama Administration’. The more important question is, would he accept and if yes, for how long? I personally do not see any harm in Paul Volcker taking charge of the treasury for a year or two. The more important question is, then what? President Barack Obama would need a long term economic policy and for that he would need a younger and bolder economist and not some kid from the banking sector. The United States is facing very serious structural problems in its economy. The fundamentals of the American economy are not good and have not been good for some time now. Even more important problem is the broken ‘Global Economic Architecture’ that has wobbled the current international markets. The US needs a knowledgeable, serious and thoughtful economist to conceive and fashion a new economic order for America and the world.
Paul Adolph Volcker was born on September 5, 1927 in Cape May, New Jersey, USA. He grew up in Teaneck, New Jersey and graduated from Teaneck High School. Volcker completed his undergraduate degree from Princeton University in 1949. He earned his masters in political economy from Harvard University in 1951. Paul Volcker ended his educational pilgrimage at the London School of Economics in 1951-52 as a Rotary Foundation Ambassadorial Fellow. He joined the Federal Reserve Bank of New York in 1952 as an economist. Volcker moved to the private sector in 1957 and joined Chase Manhattan Bank but returned to US Treasury Department in 1962. Chase Manhattan called him back as vice president and director of planning in 1965. During the ‘Nixon Administration’, Paul Volcker once again came back to Treasury as under-secretary from 1969 to 1974. He was partly responsible for the decision to suspend gold convertibility in 1971 that resulted in the collapse of the Bretton Woods System. President Jimmy Carter brought Paul Volcker as the Chairman of the US Federal Reserve in August 1979 to control the rate of inflation.
Charlie Rose – Paul Volcker
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