Author of the economist and jerry webman, chief economist at oppenheimer funds. Thanks for joining us. Hi. Greg, let me kick this up with you. President obamas pick for treasury secretary, chief of staff, jack lew, will take over for timothy geithner. Is this a missed opportunity to be friendly to business, the business community, or is this a new call since it appears that nobody on earth knows this better than mr. Lew. Well, i think jamie dimon would build business between the community which feels a little bit alienated by the administrations firstterm policies and mr. Obama. But what they got is a guy not one of them, but does know the budget really well and the clearly the main challenge on the economic front for the first year is going to be on the fiscal front. Insofar as jack lew has the trust of the president is in power to make deals, i would say that is is a positive. You do have to keep in mind hes not exactly the most trusted or liked person among republican on capitol hil
To me. I was responding to a question soledad. I probably speculated and i shouldnt have. The doosydoo. We begin with a state of transition for American Foreign policy as senator john kerry faces a highstakes Job Interview to be the secretary of state. Kerrys confirmation hearings were rather cordial hosted by the Foreign Relations committee which hes led for the past four years. But it was an unexpected moment when the hearings were interrupted by a protester that offered perhaps the most telling revelation about the man and the moment. Im tired of my friends dying. I dont know if theyre going to be alive the next day. When i first came to washington and testified, i obviously was testifying as part of a group of people who came here to have their voices heard, and that is, above all, what this place is about. People measure what we do. Kerrys confirmation hearing today comes a day after secretary Hillary Clinton stood her ground offering a robust defense of her handling of those atta