President Obama’s pick to be Treasury Under Secretary for Domestic Finance is Antonio Weiss. His new job would be to oversee the domestic financial system—including the implementation of the Dodd-Frank financial-reform act, and consumer protection. He is currently the global head of investment banking at Lazard Ltd, a firm that has put together several major inversion deals. Why is this significant?
“Since 2003, more
than thirty-five American companies have dodged taxes through similar deals,
which are known as “corporate inversions.””
A number of progressive
Senators, lead by Sen Warren have reservations.
"Warren has a number of problems with Weiss.
The first is the fact that his career has been focused on international
transactions. “Neither his background nor his professional experience makes him
qualified to oversee consumer protection and domestic regulatory functions at
the Treasury,” she wrote. The second is that he’s tied up in the
corporate-inversion trend, which, as she notes, the Obama administration has
criticized and tried to stop."
Sen Warren further stated, “It’s
time for the Obama administration to loosen the hold that Wall Street banks
have over economic policy making.”
Sen Warren’s
third concern is “about the fox guarding the henhouse. She ticked off a long
list of people with close ties to the financial industry who now serve in
high-level economic-policy positions in the Obama administration, including
Treasury Secretary Jack Lew and US Trade Representative Michael Froman. Letting
former Wall Streeters roost in top government perches “tells people that
one—and only one—point of view will dominate economic policymaking. It tells
people that whatever goes wrong in this economy, the Wall Street banks will be
protected first,” she wrote.”
Read more at
The Nation Magazine - http://www.thenation.com/blog/191289/next-big-fight-between-progressives-and-wall-street-dems
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