Know it All at Large: Jack Lew

Jack Lew.

This is the guy who will be in charge of the economy for the next few years.

You know all those stories that you hear where ‘Timothy Geitner’ was mentioned?

Now, those stories will reference Jack Lew or Treasury Secretary Lew. It’ll gloss over soon enough. The name may sound fresh for a minute, but after that, he and his responsibilities will slunk back into the netherworlds of economic discourse – that of which you or I may never completely understand.

Before that happens, let us be civically minded enough to at least question; who is this guy and what’s he going to do for us?

Because that’s the key of it all, isn’t it?

Jack Lew.

White House Chief of Staff for the past year or so, served under Clinton, and a registered democrat. Born in New York. Studied in D.C., and worked out of Boston.

Nice pedigree, to be sure.

Out of the possible 100 votes in senate, Lew was confirmed with a 71-26 vote, a few of which were actually republicans.

Interestingly enough, Lew’s employment at Citigroup during that pesky financial meltdown/crisis, of which the repercussions we are living with now… you know, the housing mess. Fanny, Freddy, all that jazz. Yeah that one. Lew was employed at Citigroup then. And though he's cited as saying he wasn’t one of the people who made investment decisions, the pick-fork wielding homesteader in me says a bank guy’s a bank guy.

And why are we trusting him?

Be it republican hate ads or democratic propaganda, the result is apparent. Wall Street’s bailout and Main-Street’s sellout wasn’t exactly election year rhetoric.