John W. Who?
One would think that markets would react well to the dismissal of the bumbling Paul O'Neill as Treasury Secretary.
But then, one might also have thought President Bush (and Vice-President Cheney, who led the search for the replacement -- and, according to Robert Novak, was instrumental, along with Alan Greenspan, in O'Neill's appointment in the first place) might have learned from the way markets regarded their first Treasury Secretary, who had no real ties to Wall Street. Instead, we get John W. Snow?
And markets quickly went into the crapper today.
Yeah, yeah -- they may not have been reacting entirely (or at all) to Snow. But he certainly didn't generate any excitement (as a Bill Archer or Phil Gramm or Wayne Angell certainly would have). One can only hope the Administration's new economic team can, at some point, begin to function with some success, even if it's too much to hope that they will emulate the foreign policy team. Otherwise, it's liable to start looking like Bush the elder....
(Update) James Glassman pushes Alan Greenspan for Treasury Secretary. Glassman's right about lots of stuff, but if we are to believe Novak in the piece cited above, Greenspan has already exerted way too much influence over Treasury. I don't know that Snow is the guy, but it would be nice to have have a solid-money, supply-side advocate at Treasury who would, at the very least, not contradict the President or engage in lectures on environmentalism. On the supply-side front, Greenspan just isn't the right fit.
(12-10-02 Update) Kudlow says Snow gets some decent reviews from supply-side types.
[Posted at 20:48 CST on 12/09/02] [Link]
