Peter Orszag update

Citigroup Inc. (C) announced today that it appointed Peter Orszag, who left the White House in July after working as director of the Office of Management and Budget under President Obama, as the bank’s new vice chairman for global banking.

(Photo from Runner’s World story by Amy Reinink.  Go, Peter!)

It's sort of fun watching wonkish issues that most people know nothing about become major talking points when some operative somewhere sniffs an opportunity. Imagine my surprise, for instance, when last year's Democratic primary persuaded half the country to suddenly develop extremely strong feelings on whether we should include an individual mandate in health care. This was, for me, a much more enjoyable conversation than whether Hillary Clinton actually dodged bullets in Kosovo. I kept searching my room for a very tiny genie.

By Simon Johnson.  Tim Geithner and Larry Summers are talking a good game on fiscal policy to the G20.  But they are struggling with to establish traction for their “spend now, consolidate later” message.  Fortunately, there is an easy and obvious opportunity to establish credibility on this issue: Bring Paul Krugman into government.

Today we release the two latest posts in our whistleblower series on the Bank of America foreclosure reviews, focusing on the role of the “independent” consultant hired to perform the reviews, Promontory Financial Group. The Plot So Far