The Times profiles Robert Steel, mid-level Treasury bureaucrat, and Paulson’s point man on regulatory reform, and it puts the question pretty bluntly: what, exactly, does a former Goldman Sachs executive and US Chamber of Commerce appointee want out of financial regulation?
One does wonder, but the story doesn't really give us the answer. Steel is the guy who told Congress that Treasury wanted the Bear bailout to be at a super-low price. Both Steel and Paulson get portrayed as technocrats, rather than the representatives of Wall Street, and, if you’re keeping score at home, the Times notes that Barney Frank supports regulatory reform (“we need to regulate risk in ways that we haven’t”) and that the AFL-CIO is against it (quoting a labor lawyer “who is a critic of the blueprint”).
But while Steel tries to gin up support for Paulson’s reorg, he’s keeping busy in other ways. Here’s what’s coming from Treasury: a voluntary code of conduct for hedge funds and advice from Calpers to pension funds like it:
On Tuesday, Mr. Steel’s office will bless the release of two reports that examine the issues of hedge funds, risk and investor protection. In one, Eric Mindich, a former Goldman executive who now runs the hedge fund Eton Park, will — with a group of supporting funds — propose nonbinding steps that hedge funds should take. They include publishing audited financial statements like public companies do, the establishment of conflict committees and disclosing on a quarterly basis the extent of their hard-to-value assets.
The other report, directed by Russell Read, the chief investment officer of Calpers, the California state pension fund, will address the question of applicability of such funds to different classes of investors.
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1. Posted by M.D. Fatwa on April 15, 2008 @ 10:00 | Permalink
I don't think I would necessarily characterize a Treasury Under-Secretary as "mid-level". It's a little like calling a 3-star general a "mid-level" officer.
2. Posted by 2L on April 15, 2008 @ 10:10 | Permalink
Mindich made partner at Goldman at 27. 27!
And M.D. Fatwa is right. "Treasury Under-Secretary"(sic) is low-level.
3. Posted by David Zaring on April 15, 2008 @ 11:38 | Permalink
Point taken on mid-level. In my defense, he's not the secretary or the undersecretary (or the chief of staff). If a newspaper quoted him anonymously, I don't know if they'd call him a "senior aide to the president," though they might call him a "senior official at the Treasury Department." Undersecretaries are the officials immediately below the deputy on the Treasury org chart:
http://www.ustreas.gov/organization/org-chart-122005.pdf
4. Posted by David Zaring on April 15, 2008 @ 11:42 | Permalink
Ack, I'm proving your points. Steel is not the secretary or *deputy* secretary. He's the undersecretary for domestic finance, which makes him one of three undersecretaries in the department, and part of the level below deputy.
5. Posted by M.D. Fatwa on April 15, 2008 @ 13:38 | Permalink
Also, it's always good to keep in mind how bureaucracies work. Policy is "managed" by the secretary, but actually set at under secretary and assistant secretary levels. For one thing, secretaries, chairmen, and other department/agency heads are rarely around long enough to know how to implement policy, or the intracacies of what needs to be done in order to get from Point A to Point B. This often makes them hostage to department staff and is one of the reasons Republicans, in particular, get so worked up over this "unitary executive" idea. ("Senior aides" to the President are even farther down the chain, since they usually have even less input into policy -- they have no staff and no legislatively-authorized powers to implement anything. You see White House staff with senior titles develop grand policy papers all the time, very little of which ever gets anywhere.)
I consider anyone above a GS-15 to be "high level", particularly if I were lobbying to get something done for a client.
6. Posted by Jake on April 15, 2008 @ 17:47 | Permalink
Hmmph. Anyone above GS-15 is "high level" enough to speak to?
Elitist. Emulating the junior senator from Illinois.
Common folks in this Republic can't tolerate such elitist commentary.
Tone it down, please, you elitist.
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