Treasury Secretary Is No Job For A CEO

Neil Irwin has a good piece arguing that Jamie Dimon would be a terrible Treasury Secretary because generally CEOs have a poor record in the position. That's quite right and is one of the reasons I'm confident the political instinct to reach for CEO X won't control Obama and he'll pick Jack Lew instead. I do have to say, though, that I find it frustrating that we even have to have these conversations. As I've written before, nobody ever suggests replacing the CEO of a large company with a successful mayor. People go back and forth between the business and political worlds all the time, which is sometimes great and sometimes a pernicious revolving door, but the key test for likely success in a high-level political job is success in a closely related job. Maybe something sub-cabinet at Treasury. Maybe one of the other economic policy gigs elsewhere in the government (Lew ran OMB). Maybe y...