"Obama friend and campaign finance chairwoman Penny Pritzker also is on the board, as is Caterpillar Inc. Chairman-CEO Jim Owens and General Electric Co. CEO Jeffrey R. Immelt. Two labor officials — Anna Burger of Change to Win and Richard Trumka of the AFL-CIO — also were named to the 15-member board designed to offer Obama advice as he seeks a way to weather the crisis and rebuild the economy.

"The new council is intended to be an economic sounding board for Obama — an outside-the-Beltway group that will report to the president directly. It will meet regularly with Obama, perhaps once a month. Its mission will include responding to requests from Obama — such as delving into a particular subject — without competing with the National Economic Councilor day-to-day decision-making at the White House."

Some of the questionable appointees are Penny Pritzker, for example, about whom Tiny Revolution gives this description:  "Pritzker is the national finance chair of Obama's presidential campaign. She's from one of America's richest families, the founders of the Hyatt hotel chain, and is herself the 135th richest person in America.

"She also has an ugly history as the former chair of Superior Bank in Illinois, which (1) was created thanks to a giant S&L bailout by the government; (2) then helped invent the securitization of subprime mortgages; and (3) then collapsed in 2001 thanks to massive financial chicanery.

"Interestingly, she lives in a fancy Chicago neighborhood just a short stroll away from Austan Goolsbee, a University of Chicago professor who's one of Obama's main economic advisors. It's really quite wonderful how Goolsbee can maintain his deep admiration for the Free Market while living a few blocks away from billionaires who use massive government power to create and subsidize their businesses. (Both Pritzker and Goolsbee are, of course, graduates of Stutts University.)"

Austin Goolsbee is "guiding" this board, by the way.

Another questionable appointment to the National Economic Council was Diana Farrell who is described as having done much to promote offshoring of American jobs as David Sirota writes at Open Left: 

On the very same day he was meeting with "CEOs [who] outsource American jobs"--a phrase he repeatedly and derisively used during his campaign, [Obama] named McKinsey's & Co.'s Diana Farrell to his National Economic Council, the inner circle of economic advisors in the White House. Farrell has done more to promote outsourcing than nearly anyone else in America.

Farrell was the lead author of the infamous "Offshoring: Is it a Win-Win Game?" Now she'll be operating at the highest levels of the Obama administration. Her phony "study" did more damage than any other in the debate over offshoring. And her propaganda was used to mislead the American public about the true impact of offshoring.

Moreover, Farrell's firm made millions of dollars consulting with companies, advising them to accelerate their offshoring. And she publicly made the rounds to convince policymakers and the public that offshoring was good for them and the country. It's also no coincidence that the IBM and Nasscom, the Indian IT outsourcing industry association, were major McKinsey clients. They benefited from McKinsey's lobbying as well as its consulting services.

"So considering the source - and the ample evidence he cites - I'd say this is a very problematic appointment, especially considering Farrell will be serving on a council headed by Larry Summers - not exactly a guy who has given a shit about reforming our trade/globalization laws."

Another troubling appointee, Martin Feldstein, Reagan's chief economic adviser (that alone should disqualify him) who "as a member of the board of AIG Financial Products, Feldstein was one of those who had oversight of the division of the international insurer that contributed to the company's crisis in September, 2008. He has also served as a board member forEli Lilly and Company."  

Feldman's claim that John McCain's tax plan would create jobs, included the long debunked and failed Reaganite  GOP mantra that cutting corporate tax rates would create jobs and Feldman's repetition of the misleading statement that the US has the second highest corporate tax rate in the world without mentioning that :"...because the United States has so many generous special tax preferences for businesses, it collects the fourth lowest corporate tax revenues as a share of GDP among all OECD countries."

Obama has already made glaring mistakes with some of his high level personnel picks, and its seems he's continuing that trend with troubling appointees to his economic recovery board.