The Selection of Jack Lew, Citibank's Shadow and The Jack Lew Signature Generator

G-d bless America, land of freedom, guns and distraction. The hubub concerning the selection of White House Chief of Staff Jacob (Jack) Lew as US Treasury Secretary replacing Timothy Geitner initially became more concerned with his loopy, unrecognizable signature, than with what the country could expect from this ostensibly low-key managager, organizationally capable, but who was portrayed as more government than Wall Street insider. Today, of course,  the Washington Post has now reported that in fact Lew was at Citibank during the critical 2006-2008 period when the bank nearly exploded. And he wasn't just there, he was Treasury secretary nominee Jack Lew has spent most of his career in government, but during the financial crisis, he was embedded inside one of the country’s biggest banks as it nearly imploded.

Washington Post: "From 2006 to 2008, he worked at Citigroup in two major roles, a notable line in his résumégiven that as Treasury secretary, he would be charged with implementing new rules regulating Wall Street.But Lew did not have just any position at the bank."

"In early 2008, he became a top executive in the Citigroup unit that housed many of the bank’s riskiest operations, including its hedge funds and private equity investments. Massive losses in that unit helped drive Citigroup into the arms of the federal government, which bailed out the bank with $45 billion in taxpayer money that year."

"The group had been under pressure to compete with similar units at other big Wall Street firms and, some analysts say, took on too many risks as it played catch-up."The mismanagement of risk was comprehensive at that organization,” said Simon Johnson, an economist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Details about Lew’s exact responsibilities at Citigroup, where he worked from 2006 to 2008, are scant. He declined to comment for this article." Full article here

Of course, the folk wisdom has it that, despite his "low profile in banking and with Wall Street," his cool, low key negotiating style will help with budget negotiations in Congress.  This all remains to be seen in the weeks ahead.

Most supporters of the President have accepted this selection, despite the recent petition campaign, led by actor/activist Danny Glover, to have Nobel Prize winner and NY Times Columnist Paul Krugman nominated as Treasury Secretary. Krugman has long suggested investment in Americans, rather than austerity, as the jump start the economy requires. That effort, which garnered more than 200,000 signatures, is outlined here (Krugman, likely confirming his Nobel Prize-winning intellect, expressed no interest in the job.) To sign the petition anyway, go here

Time will tell, and if the Citibank questions will create any ruckus during Mr. Lew's appointment hearings with Congress. And certainly, "Then time will tell just who fell/And who’s been left behind/When you go your way and I go mine" here


Speaking of signatures, which is how this essay began, White House Chief of Staff Jacob Lew joked about his poor penmanship (as shown above) after President Obama nominated him for Treasury secretary. Could the greenback, recognized as classic lucre, mazuma, gelt, bucks, benjamins,  around the world, survive the scribble signature of the presumptive Treasury Secretary?

Now Yahoo's engineers have brilliantly developed a system to convert your own scrawl into the Jack Lew bubble script. See for yourself here

G-d bless America...Distractum Ergo Sum