Following former Goldman Sachs' partner Steve Mnuchin's visit to Trump Tower this morning (as the decision over Treasury Secretary looms), the Trump transition team just announced that Donald Trump and Mike Pence will meet with Goldman Sachs COO Gary Cohn (but provided no details on whatthey would discuss).
As Bloomberg reports, Cohn joins a long line of people who are offering advice or being considered for administration positions.
Vice President-elect Mike Pence will join Trump at the meeting, transition spokesman Sean Spicer told reporters on a conference call.
He did not give details about what they would discuss or whether Cohn may be in line for a position in the Trump administration.
For now, Mnuchin sits atop the list of possibles for Treasury Secretary
TREASURY SECRETARY
* Steven Mnuchin, former Goldman Sachs Group Inc executive and Trump's campaign finance chairman
* Jeb Hensarling, Republican U.S. representative from Texas and chairman of the House Financial Services Committee
* Tom Barrack, founder and chairman of Colony Capital Inc
* John Allison, former chief executive officer of BB&T Corp
* David McCormick, president of hedge fund Bridgewater Associates LP
Notably, Trump met with John Allison yesterday, the former CEO of the bank BB&T and of the libertarian think tank the Cato Institute. While running the the Cato Institute, Allison wrote a paper in support of abolishing the Fed. Allison said his “long-term ambition” for monetary policy “would be to get rid of the Federal Reserve and get back to a private banking system.” The Fed is “a scary organization because there’s no control,” he said.
“I would get rid of the Federal Reserve because the volatility in the economy is primarily caused by the Fed,”
“When the Fed is radically changing the money supply, distorting interest rates, and over-regulating the financial sector, it makes rational economic calculation difficult,”
“Markets do form bubbles, but the Fed makes them worse.”
Allison also suggested that the government’s practice of insuring bank deposits up to $250,000 should be abolished and the US should go back to a banking system backed by “a market standard such as gold.”
Should Mnuchin get the nod, it will certainly elevate his former employer, Goldman Sachs, to its traditional level of being pari passu with the US executive and legislative branch when it comes to decisionmaking. It also would mean that the swamp may be about to get a whole lot deeper.
via http://ift.tt/2gfNmgi Tyler Durden