Anderson@Large

Confidence Men

Ron Suskind’s much-anticipated book, “Confidence Men: Wall Street, Washington, and the Education of a President,” will be published today.

The book reportedly tells how three stooges appointees – former White House Chief of Rahm Emanuel, former Director of the National Economic Council Larry Summers and Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner – “hijacked” the Obama presidency.

Frank Rich and Adam Moss of New York Magazine received an advance copy. Here’s what they had to say:

Adam: Hi, Frank. So there’s a little commotion about this new book Confidence Men, by Ron Suskind, which is being published on Tuesday. And as it happens, you and I have actually read it! So let’s talk about that this week. To give readers a super-fast overview, it’s a book, essentially, about Obama’s economic team during his first two years in office. The news of the book, according to some reports, is that Tim Geithner was insubordinate to the president, pursuing his own pro-banker agenda. Or, according to other reports, that Larry Summers was insubordinate to the president, pursuing his own — well, monomaniacal agenda. I’d add that it’s also about Rahm Emanuel being insubordinate to the president, just because. Basically, it’s about the presidency being hijacked by these three guys. And the guys thing is important because they’re pretty awful to women. Anyway, they’re the villains. Paul Volcker, Christina Romer, and Elizabeth Warren are the heroes. Bankers win, America loses. Did I get that right?

Frank: Hi, Adam, and yes, you did! I would point out that among the other heroes are more women (Sheila Bair, Brooksley Born, Maria Cantwell) and at least one man, the Princeton economist Alan Krueger, who also seems to be a serious Suskind source and who has now returned to the White House to succeed Austan Goolsbee and Romer as head of the Council of Economic Advisers. Not that that will do any good. I think the portrait of Geithner is devastating — his countermanding of the president’s wishes to make a Wall Street object lesson of Citigroup, his nasty “Elizabeth Warren strategy” to silence and neuter the administration’s rare genuine reformer. And yet Geithner is the only member of the original economic team still standing in the White House, poised to countermand any other rare independent voice that might yet speak up, like Krueger’s.

A: You think the portrait of Geithner is more devastating than the one of Summers? I guess. In that instance you cite, Obama asks to put the dissolving of Citibank on the table, and Geithner simply ignores him, “walking back” the decision, in political parlance. More insidiously, he creates the framework, borrowed from Hippocrates, of “first, do no harm,” which effectively cuts off any bold reforms for fear of their potential effects on the market. But Summers is portrayed as an egotistical nut job, single-mindedly determined to get Bernanke’s job; when he doesn’t get it, he goes bananas. He is supposed to be a conduit for the collective advice of the team, but undermines his colleagues, only passing along advice and information that supports his positions. I was kind of stunned how many officials were willing to go on the record against him.

Peter Orszag relays this eviscerating quote that Summers said to him about Obama during the worst of the economic distress. According to Orszag, Summers says, “You know, Peter we’re really home alone. There’s no adult in charge. Clinton would never have made these mistakes.” Later, Orszag says to Suskind, “Larry just didn’t think the president knew what he was deciding. Was this [obstruction of the president’s wishes] outright and willful?” In other words, asks Orszag, was Summers saying, “I know more than the president flat-out? That strikes me as ... likely.” In an amazing memo, Pete Rouse, who would replace Emanuel temporarily as chief of staff, recommends firing Summers for “Larry’s imperious and heavy-handed direction of the economic policy process.” Romer says Summers made her feel “like a piece of meat.”

In the end, nobody’s talking to Summers — not even his crony Geithner. Furious that Geithner didn’t recommend him for Bernanke’s job, he stands Geithner up at a dinner for all the former Treasury secretaries — Summers is the only living former secretary not there. Geithner says, “Larry would rather be in Davos than at dinner with me.” At least according to Suskind, the only person who could stand Summers was Obama, which — in Suskind’s telling — was a misjudgment that had a rather profound effect on the first chunk of Obama’s presidency.

Read more: Obama’s Economic Quagmire

Black Labor Pains

President Obama will unveil his jobs plan before a joint session of Congress tonight.

There's been a lot of speculation about what will be included in his latest Big Speech. Rep. Maxine Waters questions whether the president will give voice to the jobless crisis in the African American community.

In a statement, Waters told POLITICO:

There are roughly 3 million African Americans out of work today, a number nearly equal to the entire population of Iowa. I would suggest that if the entire population of Iowa, a key state on the electoral map and a place that served as a stop on the president’s jobs bus tour were unemployed, they would be mentioned in the president’s speech and be the beneficiary of targeted public policy.

So, one question to be answered this evening is, are the unemployed in the African-American community, including almost 45 percent of its youth, as important as the people of Iowa?

Waters added:

This evening, as the President speaks to the nation about his plan to create jobs, he must acknowledge the economic disaster in the African American community, whose unemployment rate hovers at roughly 16.7 percent, almost double that of the general population and equal to depression-era levels. He must then articulate how the plan he puts forth will target the communities with the highest rates of unemployment, including the African American community.

While Obama may not say our name, Gallup has given us a new name, “outlier.” CBS News reports:

Now, with Hispanic approval ratings getting closer and closer to the national average, Gallup notes that “blacks have become an extreme outlier -- the only major racial group showing well-above-average approval.”

Still, black Americans' unwavering support may not be enough to get Obama to acknowledge black pain. As Waters observed:

There are those, who believe that the President, because he is black, cannot talk specifically about issues directly impacting the black community, like high unemployment. They suggest that doing so would endanger the President’s chances of being re-elected. I share the desire to reelect the first black President.

But, I would offer a slightly different analysis. If the unemployment rates in the African American Community continue to climb, like they did in August by almost a full percentage point, those African American voters who came out to the polls for the first time in 2008 but who have since lost their home and/or their job, may not return to the polls. Therefore, targeting public policy to a community who accounted for 13 percent of the electorate in ‘08, and who is now experiencing the culmination of a decade of economic crisis, is not just good policy, but good politics.

What you say.

Ask a Woman Who Knows

Last week the leaders of two civil rights organizations, Marc Morial and Benjamin Jealous, met with President Obama to discuss job creation and economic growth.

The readout of the meeting notes that Obama “congratulated the leaders on their upcoming conventions.”

As expected, my post about black female civil rights leaders being left out of the meeting sparked accusations that I am a “hater.” My response: Guilty as charged.

I hate that Wells Fargo was the “Lead Sponsor” of the NAACP’s 101st annual convention. And they’re still hooked up in Los Angeles.

The predatory lender was a “Principal Sponsor” of the National Urban League’s centennial conference, and will be back on board when the League kicks off its annual conference this week.

Now check this out: On Wednesday, the Federal Reserve Board ordered Wells Fargo to pay an $85 million fine for steering borrowers with good credit into subprime loans. I hate when that happens.

The order reads:

The $85 million civil money penalty is the largest the Board has assessed in a consumer-protection enforcement action and is the first formal enforcement action taken by a federal bank regulatory agency to address alleged steering of borrowers into high-cost, subprime loans.

[…]

The order addresses allegations that Wells Fargo Financial sales personnel steered borrowers who were potentially eligible for prime interest rate loans into loans at higher, subprime interest rates, resulting in greater costs to borrowers. The order also addresses separate allegations that Wells Fargo Financial sales personnel falsified information about borrowers’ incomes to make it appear that the borrowers qualified for loans when they would not have qualified based on their actual incomes.

I have been asked to identify the black women leaders who should have been invited. I will not name names because that would be a betrayal of their trust. Although they know their stuff, they would be ostracized and penalized for breaking the silence.

And I would really hate for that to happen.

UPDATE: The Huffington Post reports the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice is investigating Wells Fargo for “allegedly preying upon African American borrowers during the housing bubble and steering them into high-cost subprime loans.”

NAACP, Wells Fargo Still Hooked Up

A year ago, I broke the story that Wells Fargo was the lead sponsor of the NAACP’s 101st annual convention. I put the NAACP on blast for getting in bed with an “unequal opportunity lender.”

The relationship came on the heels of the NAACP dropping its three-year-old racial discrimination lawsuit against the subprime mortgage lender.

The NAACP has refused to disclose the financial terms of its “partnership” with Wells Fargo. But as a 501(c)(3), what it does in the dark eventually will be made public. So I made a mental note to check the civil rights organization’s IRS Form 990 to see how much it had been paid to hook up with the predatory lender.

It’s clear what the NAACP has become; now they’re just negotiating the price. So frankly, I put the issue on the backburner. That is until Saturday.

During the Investigative Reporters and Editors’ ethnic media watchdog workshop at the New York Times, IRE Executive Director Mark Horvit led a session on “key documents you can't live without.” Those documents include IRS Form 990, which nonprofits must file and make available for public inspection.

Back in the day, one had to go to a nonprofit’s office and demand to see its most recent filing. In the age of the Internet, one merely has to visit Guidestar and search its database.

It was serendipitous that someone asked Horvit to look up the NAACP’s Form 990.

A review of the NAACP’s 2009 Form 990 shows the organization raised a little over $3.5 million for its centennial convention in New York City, which I attended.

NAACP 2009 Form 990

In 2008, the NAACP raised $3 million for its 99th annual convention in Cincinnati.

The 990s set a baseline. I will update the story as information becomes available.

Meanwhile, the NAACP’s partner is under investigation by federal regulators and all 50 state attorneys general for illegal foreclosures by its mortgage servicers.

On Saturday, the New York Times editorialized:

Americans know that banks have mistreated borrowers in many ways in foreclosure cases. Among other things, they habitually filed false court documents. There were investigations. We’ve been waiting for federal and state regulators to crack down.

Prepare for a disappointment. As early as this week, federal bank regulators and the nation’s big banks are expected to close a deal that is supposed to address and correct the scandalous abuses. If these agreements are anything like the draft agreement recently published by the American Banker — and we believe they will be — they will be a wrist slap, at best. At worst, they are an attempt to preclude other efforts to hold banks accountable. They are unlikely to ease the foreclosure crisis.

The NAACP’s hookup with Wells Fargo is more than a disappointment. It’s a measure of the extent to which the nation’s oldest civil rights organization has lost its way.

Money for War, None for Transparency

With the threat of a government shutdown looming, the White House reportedly has offered an additional $20 billion in budget cuts for the current fiscal year. And while there’s no money for open government initiatives, the week old war in Libya has already cost $600 million.

Nancy Scola of techPresident reports:

Open government advocates are freaking out about what the continuing budget resolutions being considered in the House and Senate would do to federal transparency projects like Data.gov, USASpending.gov, and online collaborations, which is to defund them, or to cut their funding to the bone; under the measures being considered on the Hill, the appropriation for the E-Government Fund for the remainder of the year would be cut to 1/17th of what it was in FY 2010, from $34 million down to two. OpenCongress’s Donny Shaw puts the numbers in perspective: “The value of data openness in government cannot be overestimated, and for the cost of just one-third of one day of missile attacks in Libya, we can keep these initiatives alive and developing for another year.”

In his address on Libya, President Obama said we’re in Libya to avert “a looming humanitarian crisis.” Obama noted:

I know that some Americans continue to have questions about our efforts in Libya. Qaddafi has not yet stepped down from power, and until he does, Libya will remain dangerous. Moreover, even after Qaddafi does leave power, 40 years of tyranny has left Libya fractured and without strong civil institutions. The transition to a legitimate government that is responsive to the Libyan people will be a difficult task. And while the United States will do our part to help, it will be a task for the international community and –- more importantly –- a task for the Libyan people themselves.

Count me among the unswayed. Edwin Starr’s anti-war anthem is more than 40 years old, but it’s still spot on.

Open Data Business Plans

I spent most of this week with “my people,” open government advocates whose work is animated by Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis’ observation that “sunlight is the best disinfectant.”

They say you can do well by doing good. During his appearance before the National FOI Day Conference, U.S. Chief Technology Officer Aneesh Chopra shared how some companies have flipped the script and are using our good work to do well for themselves. They are repurposing open datasets from federal departments and agencies and creating new products and services.

Companies like Bloomberg Government, a subscription- based service that aggregates and filters raw data to help subscribers “understand the government’s impact on business.” Yesterday, @BloombergGov held product demos at Union Station.

VC-backed BrightScope is using data from the Department of Labor, Securities and Exchange Commission and other federal agencies to rate 401k plans.

Weatherbill, a crop insurance company, is mashing up open data from the National Weather Service to help farmers adapt to climate change.

The good government folks who created the Open Data Manual ask, So I’ve Opened Up Some Data, Now What?:

While we’ve looked at how to make government information legally and technically reusable, as well as easy for the public to find, those who publish open datasets may wish to do more to proactively encourage others to make interesting and useful things with it. This section looks at additional (optional) things which can be done to promote the reuse of your data.

Well, the Institute of Medicine is looking for citizen developers and innovators. The Health Data Initiative is a public-private partnership that encourages innovators to use data from the Department of Health and Human Services to develop apps that promote prevention and wellness.

For more info, sign up to attend the “Community Health Data Forum: Harnessing the Power of Information to Improve Health,” which will be held on June 9, 2011 at the National Institutes of Health.

Alaska Native Firms Contracting Update

Earlier this year, I wrote about how Alaska Native Corporations are gaming the 8(a) small business development program and getting money for nothing.

For too long, ANCs have operated in the shadows. So it’s heartening to report during Sunshine Week that their good thing is slowly coming to an end.

Effective yesterday, the Department of Defense, General Services Administration, and National Aeronautics and Space Administration must justify sole source contracts over $20 million. It’s an interim rule but it’s a start.

While ANCs are not singled out, they are the target. Government Executive reports:

The regulatory change, which was required in the 2010 Defense Authorization bill, could have serious implications for Alaska native corporations, which, along with Indian tribes and Native Hawaiian organizations, are eligible to receive 8(a) contracts of any value. All other 8(a) participants are capped at receiving sole-source contracts of $3.5 million for services and $5.5 million for manufacturing.

Ostensibly, the rule is designed to prevent ANCs from passing most of the work on big-budget contracts through to large subcontractors. While the new provision technically refers to all 8(a) contractors, Obama administration officials concede the rule affects tribes, ANCs and NHOs most directly.

Let the sun shine in. For more info on Alaska Native Corporations, check out the ProPublica series of stories.