The Short List

clipped from business.theatlantic.com Well, that depends on what you want.  If you want a really nice chap who's spent a lot of time studying one fairly small aspect of the financial system, academics abound.  If, however, you define experience as having a broad sense of how all this stuff works, and an intimate knowledge of the broad US financial regulation system . . . well, where exactly do you get experience with the whole US financial system without, like, working in the US financial system, as either a banker or a regulator? So I suspect that the list of people who: Are US citizens Have never worked in any significant capacity for a failed bank or regulator Have made no substantial "errors" in their taxes or hiring practices Know enough about the global and especially the US financial system to hit the ground running Are prominent enough to come to the attention of Obama's vetting people  . . . is actually pretty short.