Timothy Geithner is expected to take up the treasury positions, according to NBC News and WSJ. This isn’t a surprising pick, but I think it is a good one. He’s a known and trusted quantity to the markets, but he is not an insider. I think that we should be comforted by his years of public service and what kind of man that suggests he is, vs. the possibility of another big business Paulson like Secretary. I’m also relieved it isn’t Larry, not only because he is a brash, blunt man unfit for careful nuanced times, but also I think that the more the Obama camp can minimize the harking back to the Clinton days the better. I think that is true even though Hilliary will be Secretary of State. Geithner is quite young, 47, and worked in the Treasury department from 1988-2000, suggesting that he may well know the department better than any Secretary in recent memory.

So the big four seem to be shaping up to be Clinton, Geithner, Gates and Holder. I’m looking forward to hearing about Education (maybe Arne Duncan), Labor (maybe David Bonier) and housing and urban development. Although the media is focused on the big names and the big positions, the national security, foreign policy and economic teams, I think these other positions have large, important and often overlooked roles. If you read the newspapers carefully, you know that these positions have control over a vast area of regulation that are no less important because they aren’t on the front pages.