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**NOVEMBER 30, 2020**

Kuttner on TAP

Trouble at Treasury

****

Progressives rejoiced when former Fed chair Janet Yellen was named to be
President-elect Biden's Treasury secretary. She's far better on the
whole range of policy issues under Treasury's purview than any of the
other contenders.

But not so fast. Will Yellen be master in her own house, and who will
control the all-important subcabinet positions like the undersecretary
for international affairs, the key regulatory posts, and the IRS
commissioner?

The early signs are not auspicious. Almost lost in the welter of top
economic jobs leaked to the

**Times**,

**Post**, and

**Wall Street Journal** by the transition staff on Sunday (the

**Prospect** reported most of these earlier in the week) was an
unfamiliar name, Adewale Adeyemo, known as Wally. He is to be Yellen's
deputy Treasury secretary.

Who is Wally Adeyemo? If he is typical of what's coming, we can expect
that what the Biden team gives progressives with one hand, they may take
away with the other.

Adeyemo, 39, came to the U.S. as a child from Nigeria with his parents.
He excelled in school, graduating from the University of California and
then Yale Law School. While at Yale, he worked in the Obama campaign. He
joined the administration while still in his late twenties, working for
then-Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner.

Among the red flags for progressives is the fact that after leaving
government, Adeyemo followed a well-worn path of Obama alums seeking to
cash in, and went to Wall Street. And not just anywhere on Wall
Street-he went to BlackRock, the world's largest financial firm with
$7 trillion under management, where he served as a political adviser and
for a time as chief of staff to CEO Larry Fink.

So Adeyemo begins with a conflict of interest, since Fink's top
priority is to prevent BlackRock from being designated as a systemically
important financial institution (SIFI), which would subject it to a
higher level of regulatory scrutiny. The Treasury is the key player on
this decision, and scores of others that affect BlackRock's business
model. For more on Adeyemo, click here
.

~ ROBERT KUTTNER

Follow Robert Kuttner on Twitter

Robert Kuttner's latest book is
The Stakes: 2020 and the Survival of American Democracy
.

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