Courtesy of Pam Martens.
Jack Lew Testifying at His Confirmation Hearing, February 13, 2013
Each year, millions of Americans who inherit wealth or seek to start investing for the first time, struggle with how to go about finding a competent, honest and experienced financial advisor. Having painstakingly observed for the past two weeks how the U.S. Senate went about hiring Jack Lew to be the top financial advisor to the country as Treasury Secretary, I feel there is now a very simple example millions of Americans can follow in formulating a selection process of who should manage their money: do the exact opposite of those men in Washington.
Despite enough conflicts of interests, red flags, sleazy compensation deals to repulse anyone who looked closely, the U.S. Senate voted 71-26 Wednesday to hand the keys to the U.S. Mint to Jack Lew.
But simultaneously with that vote to install the country’s financial advisor at Treasury was a no-confidence vote on the Senate floor. Knowing in advance that there was to be eight hours of debate on this nominee and that it was being publicly televised on C-SPAN, the vast majority of Democrats failed to utter one word of explanation to the American people as to why they were casting a positive vote. One got the distinct impression that dozens of Senators were holding their noses and voting to please the President of the United States – the worst possible reasoning at the worst possible time in the U.S. economy.
Senator Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) did speak at length on the Senate floor on Wednesday concerning his vote on Jack Lew for what he called “one of the most important assignments in our government today.” But after mapping out in excruciating detail every reason to reject this individual, the Senator voted to hire Lew to manage the Nation’s money. (Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) and Senator Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) spoke at length on Lew’s conflicts and made the rational decision to vote against the nominee.)
This is the no-confidence vote delivered by Senator Orrin Hatch who then later that afternoon cast a yea vote for Lew:
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