A Wall Streeter Explains What Elizabeth Warren Doesn't Get About The Treasury In Two Sentences
So POLITICO's Ben White spoke to some contacts on Wall Street about why Weiss, who runs investment banking at Bermuda-based Lazard, is the best candidate.
Here's what they said:
"Senator Warren has spent much of her career focusing on the issue of personal indebtedness and the importance of managing debt wisely. Yet when it comes to managing the largest single debt in the history of the world (as of today, the US owes bond investors $12.874 trillion), Senator Warren seems to think that experience on Wall Street isn't relevant or necessary."
That's not totally true. Warren hired ex-Wall Streeters when she spearheaded the Consumer Finance Protection Board, and has voted for Jack Lew, Sarah Bloom Raskin, and Stanley Fischer.
But she is wary of gathering too many Wall Streeters in government, and voiced these concerns in a POLITICO op-ed earlier this year.
Warren says her other beef with Weiss is his relative lack of domestic finance experience. Weiss spent much of his career overseas, including 8 years in Paris managing international mergers and acquisitions.
And, POLITICO reported, Lazard was involved in three of the last four politically unpopular tax inversion deals.