"Fresh Air", and on "This American Life" have done some terrific work explaining the financial crisis and what caused it.  And much of that work has involved speaking with Michael Greenberger Michael Greenberger, a former director at the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission.

Greenberger's boss was Brooksley Born, The Woman Greenspan, Rubin & Summers Silenced - by Katrina vanden Heuvel

...more than a decade ago, a woman you're likely never to have heard of, Brooksley Born, head of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission-- a federal agency that regulates options and futures trading--was the oracle whose warnings about the dangerous boom in derivatives trading just might have averted the calamitous bust now engulfing the US and global markets. Instead she was met with scorn, condescension and outright anger by former Federal Reserve Chair Alan Greenspan, former Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin and his deputy Lawrence Summers. In fact, Greenspan, the man some affectionately called "The Oracle," spent his political capital cheerleading these disastrous financial instruments.

I will keep an open mind, but we are beginning to see trends that if Obama does bring back Summers -- and possibly keeps Gates at Defense -- that he is not ready to make the first term of an Obama administration about the new great leaps forward we need. He may be crafting a hybrid of Bill Clinton and George W. Bush holdovers.

Indeed, there is a chance that Obama I could turn out to be GW Bush III & Clinton III.

Since election anxiety has been replaced by staffing anxiety, I sure hope he has something in tomorrow's Times.

While that might work with the cavalry, it doesn't work with lawyers.  

Summers, Rubin, and the rest of the Clinton economic team bear a part of the fault - a small part, given that the legislation was written by and for Repugs and their patrons/employers - for the mess we're in.

Catastrophes like the ones we've seen in the various markets over the last couple months don't just happen, and they don't just happen overnight.  They take years to develop.

We need a new team, with a fresh look at things and no need to justify what they'd done.

Moreover (and unsurprisingly) you fail to address the other argument I made earlier - that because Summers and Rubin have not failed out of the world because of their failed policies, they have no reason to think they might have been wrong or could have done better, and won't re-evaluate, let alone change, their prior attitudes or predilictions or policies.  People only change their approaches, attitudes, and policies when they fail - because if it succeeds, it must be right.

Giving these retreads another crack at a big job means they won't change - because they would not have gotten another shot if they were failures.

The election's over (heck, in reality it was over months ago) and you've had plenty of time to dance in the end zone.

Clearly, you deserve your own blog.

Perhaps J can set up a parallel TL blog specifically for you like she did for the Duke Lacrosse case?

Anyway, what are your transition plans?

Friedmanism is no more dead than Keyneysian is alive.  The best policies in every situation usually blossom from hybridization.

EVery economic principle ultimately plays itself out as the human condition takes over, identifies the cracks and exploits its weaknesses.  

All the more reason to change the treasury secretary every 2-3 years to keep a good system of checks and balances.

The Clinton affluence was mainly due to the high tech revolution. The bubble, which one does he have in mind, in housing started earnestly around 2003=2006, I hope he doesn't blame Clinton/Summers for it. This is the direct reason to the current collapse.

The part of the economy that got to us from Clinton is the rise of the CEO royalty and their occupation of the American industry. This occupation started way before Clinton.

On his own blog, "Beat the Press" Baker expands the reasons re Rubin and Summers:

Rubin and Summers were both major advocates of the one-sided deregulation of the financial industry under which we maintained the security blanket of "too big to fail" for the Wall Street big boys, but gave them the green light to take whatever risks they wanted in order to enrich themselves. It would be difficult to imagine that President Obama would embrace people with such a dismal track record.

A commenter adds:

Rubin and Summers were brokers of the deal that, in 1999, eliminated most of the regulation that had protected the banking system from just the kind of speculation that brought down. Rubin and Summers argued (along with Greenspan) that bankers wouldn't do something that would bring their banks to the brink of ruin. Hmmm.

And Summers should be remembered, in addition to his rather unusual views on the mathematical competence of women, for a World Bank memo issued just before Christmas in 1994 in which he suggested that moving toxic industries to Third World countries was a good thing because people in those countries didn't live long enough for the toxics to do their full damage.

And then there's this beauty of a letter sent to none other than Kenneth Lay. Check it out.