Volcker: I Endorse Obama

Former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker is the latest big-name
endorsement for Democratic Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois, lending his
gravitas in the financial world to a presidential candidate whose
biggest hurdle is to convince voters he is experienced enough to be
president.

"After 30 years in government, serving under five Presidents of both
parties and chairing two non-partisan commissions on the Public
Service, I have been reluctant to engage in political campaigns. The
time has come to overcome that reluctance," Mr. Volcker said in a
statement today. "However, it is not the current turmoil in markets or
the economic uncertainties that have impelled my decision. Rather, it
is the breadth and depth of challenges that face our nation at home
and abroad. Those challenges demand a new leadership and a fresh
approach."

He concluded: "It is only Barack Obama, in his person, in his ideas,
in his ability to understand and to articulate both our needs and our
hopes that provide the potential for strong and fresh leadership. That
leadership must begin here in America but it can also restore needed
confidence in our vision, our strength, and our purposes right around
the world."

Mr. Volcker, a Democrat, was appointed to the Fed chairmanship by
Jimmy Carter in 1979 and replaced – with Alan Greenspan – by Ronald
Reagan just a couple of months before the 1987 stock market crash. He
is widely respected among central bankers, Wall Street and economists
for breaking the back of inflation in the 1980s – at the cost of the
deepest recession the country has seen since the Great Depression. An
economist, he was earlier president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New
York from 1975 to 1979 and an under secretary of the Treasury from
1969 to 1974.

Since retiring from the Fed, he did a stint as chairman of of
Wolfensohn & Co., an investment banking firm founded by the former
president of the World Bank, and led investigations of corruption
controls at the World Bank and the controversial United Nations'
oil-for-food deal with Saddam Hussein. – Jackie Calmes

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