Michael Pascoe writes:

Hot on the heels of trying to appoint his
inexperienced in-White House lawyer to the Supreme Court, George Bush Jr is
sticking his inexperienced
in-White House economic adviser on the supreme central bank.

Overnight Bush announced two new Federal
Reserve Board Governors – meaning he has now appointed all seven members of the
Fed. The surprise is Kevin M. Warsh, the youngest-ever Fed Governor at just 35
and the very picture of a young republican.

In a nation rolling in excellent economic
brains and experience, Bush has picked an inexperienced but very well connected
little mate. At least Robert Gerard had a wealth of business and fiscal (i.e.
tax) experience when Dollar Sweetie picked him for our central bank board.

Warsh’s CV is far from overwhelming – or
even impressive. He graduated from Stanford in 1992 with a bachelor’s degree in
public policy which he followed with a law degree from Harvard, finishing in
1995.

The first of the only two jobs he seems to
have had came when he joined Morgan Stanley in 1996, rising to become an
executive director in the investment bank’s mergers and acquisitions business.
In 2002 he married Jane Lauder, granddaughter of Estee Lauder and an executive
with the family firm.

I think the Victorians would call it
“marrying well.” It would be churlish to think that perhaps he no longer had to
worry about earning big money in the cut-throat world of M&A, but 2002 was
also when he left Morgan Stanley to take a job as an economic adviser in the
White House.

Note that that’s “an economic adviser” –
just one of several. His titles have included “executive secretary” of Bush’s
National Economic Council and “special assistant to the president for economic
policy.”

There’s not much known about Warsh. The
Wall Street Journal
merely reports: “At the White House, Mr. Warsh has focused on domestic
finance, in particular interpreting and monitoring markets for the
president.”

Well I suppose that would be a challenge for
anyone.

It looks like the dumbing down and stacking
of important public posts continues apace under Bush Junior. If he’s down to
this level for the board of the world’s most important financial institution,
what Republican dumbo might yet be
appointed US ambassador to Australia?