Larry Summers Out: Obama's Cleaning House-Who's Next?

It's official: Larry Summers will leave his position as the director of the National Economic Council. After the mid-terms, he'll have to continue his bullying ways at Harvard. (Remember he, along with Robert Rubin and Alan Greenspan, fought off Brooksley Born on derivatives regulation in the later 1990's.)

The news comes on the heels of two other big departures from President Obama's economic team--Peter Orszag, who was the director of the Office of Management and Budget, and Christina Romer, previously the head of the Council of Economic Advisers.

Can you say house cleaning? (If I were Tim Geithner, I'd be speed dialing my friends at investment banks and hedge funds to see who's hiring.) The departures are a clear indication that the administration finally understands that its current economic team may have been good in the heat of the financial crisis, but is no longer adequate for the recovery phase.

Now the talk will turn to who will replace Summers? Perhaps it's time for Wall Street and Obama to mend fences, after the bitterness that has emerged over the past couple of years. Wouldn't it be something to see Jamie Dimon and Elizabeth Warren part of the same administration? Stay tuned...

Jill Schlesinger

Jill Schlesinger, CFP® is the Emmy-nominated business analyst for CBS News. She covers the economy, markets, investing and anything else with a dollar sign on TV, radio (including her nationally syndicated radio show), the web and her blog, "Jill on Money." Prior to her second career at CBS, Jill spent 14 years as the co-owner and chief investment officer for an independent investment advisory firm. She began her career as a self-employed options trader on the Commodities Exchange of New York, following her graduation from Brown University.

Twitter