So we know Mnuchin is the pick for Treasury. But, who will his #2 be?
TRUMP ECON TEAM BUZZ – Two big names still floating around for senior jobs: SkyBridge’s Anthony Scaramucci for number two at Treasury (or something else) and Goldman Sachs’ Gary Cohn for OMB Director (or other big job). Cohn met with Trump again over the weekend. And the buzz is that it’s become clear to the Goldman president that he won’t be getting the CEO job at the bank and is game for a new challenge, possibly running the budget office.
Scaramucci is the name I keep hearing so let’s look at him a bit and see what we can opine what his position might be on the GSE’s.
SkyBridge directed $490 million from its main fund to John Paulson’s funds in the six months ended Sept. 30, regulatory filings show.
What to think? We have Mnuchin who invested with Paulson in the IndyMac deal and Scaramucci who has almost 1/2 a billion dollars in Paulson funds that we know are heavily invested in GSE stocks.
Then we know the Treasury has the option to purchase 80% of the common stock for pennies
Finally there is this
COULD TRUMP CLEAN UP ON GSE REFORM? – Jeff Hauser of the Revolving Door Project on Trump-Paulson connection: “As of Trump’s 2016 FEC disclosure, he owned at least $3-15 million in Paulson funds. We have no way of knowing whether that investment grew before Mnuchin’s Paulson friendly GSE comments, but a Congress and press corps curious about whether policy is being made in the public or private interest would find out.”
Is this a set of scenarios that would lead one to believe this group is going to do something that wipes out the value of the preferred and common stock??