Paul Volcker, Obama Economic Adviser, Stepping Down

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama announced on Thursday that former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker was stepping down from his role as head of an outside panel advising the White House on economic policy.

"From his bold vision around how to reform our financial system to his thoughtful insight on how to make our economy work for working families again, Paul brought his brilliance and vast experience to bear on a host of difficult challenges," Obama said in a statement.

"I will always be grateful to Paul Volcker for his service as the head of my Economic Recovery Advisory Board," Obama said.

Reuters reported earlier this month that Volcker intended to leave the advisory board in February.

Copyright 2010 Thomson Reuters. Click for Restrictions.

Comments

[Jophoenix]

04:56 AM on 01/24/2011

And so i goes.. sad, sad, sad. What had hope is now hopeless.. the question is how we the people take our country back in order to move foward because we clearly ane moving backwards!!

[halfpricefaustian]

02:08 PM on 01/23/2011

Volker ended up being marginalized for his insistence on re-regulating the banks, as weak as his proposals were. Clearly he had to go, Wall Street has convinced the government that they are the true power in this country and they will call the shots. It reminds me of the coming of Bush's second term when everyone who was right, like Colin Powell, was purged from the administration.

[handspring]

09:08 PM on 01/22/2011

Most of these comments are silly and unsubstantiated

[Robert Prentiss]

01:53 PM on 01/22/2011

There is only one person capable of filling Volker's shoes and that is Nobel Prize winner economist Paul Krugman, who has been consistently correct in his predictions. We need his advice to counteract the Republican nonsense which is dragging us into another Great Depression.

[Bayard Waterbury]

06:30 PM on 01/22/2011

Mr. Prentiss, I know that you admire Mr. Krugman, but there are far better choices. William Black would be my first choice followed in no particular order by Joseph Stiglitz, Noriel Rubini and Simon Johnson. Krugman's intellect, from recent reading, seems to have gotten a bit squidgy around the edges and moved far into the populist realm and away from hard line economics. Black is my first choice because of his amazing breadth of experience and lucid thinking, as well as his depth of experience in regulatory matters. I wouldn't hate Paul in this post, but just believe that there are better, stronger choices. Sadly, in public appearances, Mr. Krugman has come off as a left wing whiner. Not so professional, and unwilling to support his views with good academic arguments. The others are all hard-nosed thinkers and well spoken and internationally respected.

[Meesterclean]

09:53 AM on 01/22/2011

Dear Mr. President Obama,

When you spread your legs for big business, it is all of America who contracts the disease.

[TrueSense]

10:59 AM on 01/22/2011

He is protected from the disease. So what does he care as long as he gets his. There is only 1 reason left to support him. His appointments will be a little better than Repubs.

[Meesterclean]

12:13 PM on 01/22/2011

A member here was removed for arguing that Obama should have a primary challenge.

[piperflyer]

03:09 PM on 01/22/2011

Meester, would this disease be AIDS then?

[Meesterclean]

03:11 PM on 01/22/2011

Metaphor.

[bluecollaramerican]

05:39 AM on 01/22/2011

The dirty deal is done once again.

[realmystical]

12:41 AM on 01/22/2011

So all of us are supposed to go back out to the playground and play nice with the kids that took our lunch money and will again if given the chance.

[JoanMeijer]

10:39 PM on 01/21/2011

Of course he's throwing out one of the few good people to leave his administration. But I think what we should rephrase this. Obama is surrounding himself with people who think like he does and will agree with what he wants. Poor Americans - those 99% of us who don't have Obama in their court.

[LeeCalif]

10:44 PM on 01/21/2011

Yes. And Obama thinks CORPORATE .

Unfortunately for us.

[Bayard Waterbury]

06:33 PM on 01/22/2011

I fully agree, however so do 434 people in our Congress AND the Supreme Court. Chances are that whatever happens in Washington, one needs to lube up their hindparts to respond. Bend over and say, PLEASE!!!!!

[Lego87]

08:53 PM on 01/21/2011

Not good at all. Volcker shouldn't be leaving, he should be his chief economist period.

[DoctorJohn]

08:34 PM on 01/21/2011

Chickens, make way for the foxes.

[peterverkooijen]

08:29 PM on 01/21/2011

The appointment of Immelt is corporatism in action.

For those who still don't know what corporatism means: Corporatism was Mussolini's economic policy, that became popular in Europe and elsewhere in the 1920s and 30s.

Corporatism was a way to achieve socialism, or a centrally planned economy, without civil/class war. Companies would stay in private hands, but they would be run by new organs - corpora - comprised of government bureaucrats, workers/unions and owners/management.

Business leaders who supported this new regime could of course count on favored treatment. And those who did not toe the party line would eventually be driven out of business.

Obama is moving America to a centrally planned economy using the corporatist path. The appointments of Daley and Immelt are further proof of that. That is also what the coming regulatory wave, that Obama is trying to sell as "regulatory reform", will be aiming for.

[DoctorJohn]

08:37 PM on 01/21/2011

I would agree with the case you make that the U.S. is moving toward corporatism but disagee that the president is the driving force. I would contend that it is the right wing extremists in the country, aided and abetted by TeaBag Nation, that is the leading force for corporatism and that the president is acting essentially as an enabler.

[peterverkooijen]

09:12 PM on 01/21/2011

That makes no sense. The teabaggers were not the ones asking for bailouts of certain Wall Street firms who were Obama donors and union-backed too-big-to-fail companies. Are you saying the American president is powerless and evil right wing extremists - who exactly? - are making him do this against his own will?

[LeeCalif]

10:47 PM on 01/21/2011

Corporatism IS NOT a way to achieve socialism .

Run by unions ...........? Oh, I see who you are, now ... BOO ! Scared ya !!!!

[jspkim]

08:15 PM on 01/21/2011

"there's been a powerful continuity between the 43rd and the 44th president."
James Jay Carafano, a homeland-security expert at the Heritage Foundation, told The New York Times' Peter Baker last January: "I don’t think it's even fair to call it Bush Lite. It's Bush. It's really, really hard to find a difference that's meaningful and not atmospheric.""
http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2011/01/18/cheney/index.html

[GENE DEVAUX]

08:06 PM on 01/21/2011

Take a look at Volker's record

[GENE DEVAUX]

08:03 PM on 01/21/2011

During his time as Fed chairman, he drove interest rates above 21% and drove the economy into a deep recession. The over valued dollar started the export of jobs when people could buy foreign goods with inflated dollas. Oh, yeah, I disappointed that Volker is gone, notttttt.

[Lego87]

08:57 PM on 01/21/2011

One of the greatest economists of modern times, he was largely responsible for repairing the economy from “stagflation”—high unemployment and high inflation—and for the ensuing economic prosperity of the next three decades.

Ya he sucked, notttttt.

[OnTheRoadAgain]

07:15 AM on 01/22/2011

Look.
Conservatism can work.
Liberalism can work.
D-bagism cannot work.

Volker falls into category 1. Pretty much everyone else on Obama's economic team falls into category 3.

[hellboundtrain]

08:01 PM on 01/21/2011

Very savvy no doubt!