What the US Treasury needs: magician and economic genius

James Doran assesses the qualities needed to be Obama’s Treasury secretary at a time of unprecedented crisis, and wonders whether the front-runners measure up

As situations vacant go, the position of Secretary of the United States Treasury is unique. The job requires a politician of presidential fortitude, a world-class economist and a magician capable of making a $1 trillion national deficit disappear. Short of genetically engineering the unholy product of Nobel laureate Paul Krugman and conjuror David Copperfield, such a singularly qualified individual is almost impossible to find: no small wonder that Barack Obama was in no rush to make this crucial Cabinet appointment.

If every election hinges on ‘the economy, stupid’, as James Carville observed back in 1992, then this election was no exception. The American economy is in its worst shape since the 1970s; not as bad as the Great Depression of the 1930s, as many doom-mongers would have us believe, but bad enough to impose tight restrictions on the Obama administration throughout the coming four-year term.