Schumer Angling For Treasury Secretary Gig?

An already buoyant day on Wall Street turned giddy late in Wednesday's session when a letter from Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke to Chuck Schumer was made public.  Investors appeared charmed by Bernanke's assurance that the Fed was "prepared to act as needed to mitigate the adverse effects on the economy arising from the disruptions in financial markets."

Bernanke was responding to a letter that both he and Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson received from Schumer last week, in which Schumer first applauds the Fed for having injected sufficient liquidity into the debt markets to ward off a more full-blown credit crisis, then implores the recipients to wield their clumsier weapon of heavy-handed regulation.  While Chuck assures us his recommendations don't constitute a borrower bailout, he goes on to detail how the Fed might force a borrower bailout upon lenders.

He's a deft euphemism-spinner though.

I urge you to use your leverage over financial institutions—whether banks, lenders, servicers, or brokerages—to encourage them to match the federal government’s efforts to provide funding to nonprofit groups working to prevent foreclosures, and to work with the nonprofits to help borrowers who need of loan modifications.  Using your influence over the market players in this regard is an acceptable course of action that is urgently needed in today’s world.  In the past, the regulators have shown no reluctance to “jawbone” financial institutions to issue more credit.  In today’s world, the analogous action is asking these same institutions to help accomplish refinancing.

So why is Senator Schumer playing at central banker anyway?  After all, this tactic of sending out blustery let-me-tell-you-how-to-do-your-job letters on U.S. Senate letterhead is more the province of the A-list posturers, typically those with designs on higher office, as exemplified by New York's other Senator's swiftly-smacked-down heel nipper sent off to Defense Secretary Robert Gates last month.

But Chuck is one of the few Democratic Senators not suffering from POTUS fever this year, so what gives?  Why the sanctimonious grand-standing and job description over-reaching?

From a NY1 (local Time-Warner political news channel) e-mail teaser fresh from the inbox:

In a wide-ranging interview with NY1 political anchor Dominic Carter, Senator Charles Schumer says he wouldn’t rule out being interested in a cabinet position in a Democratic White House...

Schumer's academic degrees are in politics and law, not finance or economics.  And he's never had a private sector job of any sort.  Still, given his membership on the Senate Banking and Finance Committees and his chairmanship of the Joint Economic Committee, I'd wager he's got his eye on the Treasury job under a prospective Clinton 44 (who he has formally endorsed).

As an RCN customer, I'm forbidden from looking upon NY1, but I'll keep an eye out for a link after the interview airs.