According to White House spokesman Robert Gibbs, the nap lover's impending departure, and those of others on the economic team, is "not a surprise...there will be people who have worked enormously hard over the past few years to make decisions to go back to doing what they did before joining the administration," such as consulting for DE Shaw and/or taking Harvard back to its all-male roots. [Bloomberg]
Who should replace Ben S. Bernanke as Chairman of the Federal Reserve when his term ends in January 2014? If anyone cared to ask us, we'd say no one: we like our Fed Chairman soft-spoken, bearded, and just as comfortable in dad jeans as they are in their bespoke Jos. A. Bank suits. But nobody asked and, according to Andrew Ross Sorkin, Bernanke has told "close friends" that regardless of whether or not Obama wins a second term, he's ready to move on. Apparently qualified successors are few and far between and while Larry Summers is said to be "at the top of the list," the fact that Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner may finally be granted freedom from his own personal Guantanamo Bay and will also necessitate a replacement who will have to work closely with the new Fed Chair poses some staffing issues, on account of the perception that Summers is somewhat difficult to work with. ...[Summers is] a serious economist who knows his numbers and has a worldview that is similar to the president’s. He would be expected to continue the loose money policy of Mr. Bernanke. But one of the knocks against Mr. Summers is that he has a reputation for not playing well with others. He has had his own run-ins with the president. And if you consider the Treasury secretary and Federal Reserve chairman as a tag team, you would have to be confident that whomever you pick for Treasury secretary would get along well with Mr. Summers. So he called some former students assholes. So he'll cut a bitch for getting between him and his steady stream of Diet Coke. So he chooses to sleep through co-workers' particularly boring presentations. So he makes female colleagues feel like "pieces of meat." So he shoots people unequivocal death stares that say, "I could have you killed and no one would find out" for the mere suggestion he might want to consider wearing socks. Is all that to say he's not an otherwise affable guy who'd make a fine workmate and prized addition to an office softball team? Casting Dual Roles At Treasury And The Fed [Dealbook]