Mike Bloomberg Isn't Gunning to Take Over Treasury

Mike Bloomberg isn't pushing for a chance to run the Treasury Department. President Obama simply may hand it to him.

Given the weak economy, there is more talk that President Obama will energize his new war on economic weakness by replacing his generals. New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg—a one-time Democrat, who was first elected mayor as a Republican and more recently became an independent—is regarded as a possible successor to Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, should Obama decide to make a switch.

The New York post raised the issue, linking it to a round of gold that Bloomberg and Obama played on Martha's Vineyard. The Atlantic says the White House denies the switch is in the works, and Bloomberg's office says the mayor is content to be mayor.

The Atlantic's Marc Ambinder says: "the notion that the White House want to replace one Wall Street titan with another, especially if they're concerned with economic optics post mid-term, is a little foolish."

However, it's not accurate to lump Geithner and Bloomberg into the same group. Geithner, the former head of the New York Fed, is an influential regulator and power broker. But he's no "Wall Street titan" either. On Wall Street, the titans are the people with the most money.

Bloomberg, the eighth-richest person in the U.S., has a fortune worth an estimated $18 billion. He's a titan, for sure, having founded Bloomberg LP, the news and information company in which he owns an 88 percent stake. He got his start at Salomon Brothers, but he's a hybrid titan—part Wall Street, part entrepreneur and CEO, and part politician. While Geithner's predecessor at Treasury, former Goldman chief Hank Paulson, was a Wall Street titan in the conventional sense, Bloomberg defies categorization.

Obama needs to rethink his economic team. And he needs insight into what will stimulate the economy at the business level, not just the financial level. Bloomberg is as likely as anyone to understand what it will take to convince CEOs that it's time to dip into their hoards of cash and hire.