Thursday, October 1, 2009

Paul Volcker: Obama Does NOT Rely on My Advice Anymore

Paul Volcker was being interviewed on Charlie Rose on Tuesday where he uttered something that made us literally hop off the couch. The exchange occurs towards the end of the interview around the 43.49 min mark. Here is the transcript:

Charlie: So you walk into the President's office and he says 'Paul great to see you, certainly relied on your advice...'
Volcker: Maybe NOT ANYMORE!
Charlie: Oh you THINK that? You think they listen to you less now because you know... they don't like their guy going out there… saying he doesn’t like everything we are trying to do. The one area where we were depending on his credibility to help us, he is drawing divisions within us.
Volcker: no no...Short that conversation...the President was aware that I had one or two problems.
Freudian slip or just jest? We think not. Given Charlie's strong line of questioning, he obviously knew more about Volcker’s rocky relationship with the administration and wanted to delve deeper.
Volcker has been pretty vocal about not towing the administration's propaganda: of a V-shaped economic recovery and green shoots sprouting all across the American heartland. And off late there have been many reports circulating in the media that the Obama-Larry-Timmy trio has sidelined Volcker.
Looks like Obama used Volcker to get past the election bump and then said Hasta La Vista Baby. We expected nothing less.
Both Democrats and Republicans bring nothing new to the table. Underneath all the ‘we are different parties’ rhetoric their policies and modus operandi remain the same. What America needs is REAL CHANGE, a brand new set of of good honest people entering politics. Until then we have no hope.



3 comments:

tracabhi said...

Although this is hardly surprising its something that we all weren't actually looking forward to hear, you have to remember that so far Obama's achievements have been dismal at best and there is a surreal feeling that we may have changed the color of things, but things haven't really changed at all! Check out the top 3 news articles in business today
1) Lewis finally comming to realize his colosal failures

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/01/business/01auto.html?bl

2)Saturn finally facing the delayed inevitable

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/01/business/01auto.html?bl

3)"Unexpected"rise in Jobless claims

http://money.cnn.com/2009/10/01/news/economy/initial_jobless_claims/?postversion=2009100108

All this is something that anyone with any sense of basic economics could have and did predict before the American tax payer shelled out billions and billions of dollars to keep these leeches on “life support” and waiting to watch the inevitable. Regulation was promised, regulation won’t happen, a government free from lobbyist was promised, that will never happen…what a waste of all the excitement.

Anonymous said...

I'm sort of surprised the Volcker retracted a little bit, after all he doesn't have much to lose. Certainly remaining true to his economic principles will preserve his legacy, but if he isn't being listened to in any form why hang around?

The Firecracker Report said...

You are absolutely right. Why bother to retract and ruin your reputation?