华尔街不看好奥巴马的财长人选

    杰克·卢很有可能获得美国总统奥巴马提名，在他第二届任期内担任财长，但此君并不是华尔街心中这个关键经济岗位的第一人选。他甚至连第二人选都不是。

    “我和很多投资者谈过，他们都认为财长一职从蒂姆·盖特纳手中交给杰克总体而言不是什么好消息，”古根海姆公司（Guggenheim Partners）高级政治分析师克里斯·克鲁埃格说。“华尔街到底希望谁来当财长？绝不是杰克·卢。”

    现年57岁的杰克曾在华尔街干过3年，担任花旗集团（Citigroup）另类资产投资管理部门的首席运营官。卢所在的部门曾投资一只由约翰·保尔森管理的基金，当时保尔森正在大举做空住宅市场和银行。但这些似乎并不是人们印象中卢的个人经历。当然，这段段经历也并不是很重要。

    卢自小在纽约皇后区长大，从哈佛大学（Harvard University）和乔治敦大学法学院（Georgetown Law）毕业后直接去了华盛顿，此后的大部分时间里都在政府圈子里供职。他曾多次参与达成重大的预算协议。他曾为众议院议长蒂普·奥尼尔工作，在这期间奥尼尔就加税和削减福利与时任美国总统里根达成了协议。卢也曾是克林顿总统预算团队的主要成员，在消除预算赤字的同时，与共和党就保留应得利益达成了长期协议。

    奥巴马时期，卢担任了白宫预算和管理办公室主任，2012年初又成为了奥巴马的首席幕僚长。

    此次大选以来，奥巴马似乎一直在试图修复与华尔街的关系；这次大选中，华尔街集体倒向了罗姆尼。大选过后，奥巴马给摩根大通（JPMorgan Chase）CEO杰米·戴蒙和其他企业领导人打了电话。最近，卢也与戴蒙进行了会面，商讨财政悬崖问题。盖特纳预计将在明年初离任财长一职。

    不管怎样，一些金融业高管表示，假如奥巴马选择卢担任财长，表明奥巴马对待修复与商界领导人的关系这个问题并不像他口头说的那么认真。华尔街人士称，相对于卢，他们更倾向于另外两名候选人，前投资银行家、两度成为第二人选的厄斯金·鲍尔斯和黑石集团（BlackRock）CEO拉里·芬克。鲍尔斯一直是预算赤字鹰派人物，而芬克显然通晓债券市场。而且，不像卢，华尔街对这两个人很熟悉。

    Jack Lew, the frontrunner to be named Treasury Secretary in Obama's second term, isn't Wall Street's first choice for the key economic post. He's not even its second.

    "I've talked to a bunch of investors and it's seen as a net negative going from [Tim] Geithner to Lew," says Chris Krueger, senior political analyst at Guggenheim Partners. "Who does Wall Street want? Not Jack Lew."

    Lew, 57, spent three years on Wall Street working at Citigroup (C) as the chief operating officer of its alternative asset investment management unit. One of the funds Lew's group invested in was run by John Paulson, who at the time was betting heavily against the housing markets and banks. But that's not the part of Lew's resume that anyone seems to remember. And it's certainly not the important part.

    After Lew, a Queens, New York native, graduated from Harvard University and Georgetown Law, he headed straight to Washington and has mostly stuck inside the Beltway ever since. He's been on teams credited with brokering major budget deals. He worked for Tip O'Neill when the House speaker struck a deal to raise taxes and cut benefits with President Reagan. And Lew was a key member of President Clinton's budget team, which simultaneously erased the deficit and struck a long-term deal with Republicans to preserve entitlements.

    Under Obama, Lew served as the head of the Office of Budget and Management, and at the beginning of 2012 he became Obama's chief of staff.

    Since the election Obama has seemingly been trying to patch things up with Wall Street, which threw its collective support behind Romney. After the election, Obama called JPMorgan Chase (JPM) CEO Jamie Dimon and other business leaders. And Lew recently met with Dimon to talk about the fiscal cliff. Geithner is expected to exit the Treasury job early next year.

    Nonetheless, some financial executives say that if Obama were to choose Lew for Treasury Secretary, it would signal that the president is not as serious about mending his relationship with corporate leaders as he says. Wall Streeters say the two other candidates who are considered in the mix for the job, former investment banker and two-time second Erskine Bowles and BlackRock (BLK) CEO Larry Fink, would be preferable to Lew. Bowles has been a deficit hawk, and Fink clearly knows the debt market. What's more, unlike Lew, neither one would need an introduction to Wall Street.