Bush taps Kellogg Co. CEO Gutierrez to head Commerce - Hassett, AEI, possible replacement of Mankiw

WASHINGTON (CBS.MW) -- President Bush announced Monday that Carlos Gutierrez, Kellogg Co.'s chief executive, would replace Don Evans as Commerce Secretary, making the first of what are expected to be many changes in his economic team. "Carlos Gutierrez is one of America's most respected business leaders," Bush said at the official announcement in the Roosevelt Room of the White House. (...) Gutierrez, 51, has been CEO at Battle Creek, Mich.-based Kellogg (K) since April 1999. Kellogg shares fell 51 cents immediately after news broke that the cereal maker would lose its leader, and closed at $43.47, down $1.54, or 3.4 percent. Read more about the company's succession plans. (...) Bush has set an ambitious domestic agenda for his second term, and the Gutierrez announcement is the first of what is likely to be a wholesale makeover the administration's economic team. Read more about the Bush agenda. The White House has already announced that top economic advisor Stephen Friedman is leaving, but a successor has not been named. Tim Adams, a former chief of staff at Treasury and most recently policy director at the Bush-Cheney reelection campaign, is considered a possible replacement. And N. Gregory Mankiw, who caused a stir last year when he said "outsourcing" jobs overseas was beneficial to the American economy, is expected to leave his job as chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisors and return to Harvard University. American Enterprise Institute scholar Kevin Hassett, who advised the Bush-Cheney campaign, is seen as a possible replacement. Treasury Secretary John Snow is seen staying with the administration for the near term but would be replaced sometime next year. (...) White House chief of staff Andrew Card is considered a possible replacement for Snow. (...)

"And N. Gregory Mankiw, who caused a stir last year when he said "outsourcing" jobs overseas was beneficial to the American economy, is expected to leave his job as chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisors and return to Harvard University. American Enterprise Institute scholar Kevin Hassett, who advised the Bush-Cheney campaign, is seen as a possible replacement."

I think that Kevin Hassett is an "asset" for the next Bush agenda. Instead MIT economist James Poterba, has declined the post, according to sources inside and outside the White House. Poterba told White House officials he did not want to move to Washington and disrupt the lives of his teenage children. Hassett is a very prolific author: < http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/cf_dev/AbsByAuth.cfm?per_id=54700 >
I also read some of his well known papers. One of his last papers (not very academic, but still a ironhanded and useful one) is a must-read for all FReeper:
< http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/Delivery.cfm/SSRN_ID591321_code16317.pdf?abstractid=588453&mirid=1 >
Let me know. Bye.

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