There is something poetic, I suppose, about Larry Summers announcing his upcoming departure from the Obama administration on the last day of summer. The Obama administration has been accused of having a "tin ear" when it comes to its relations with the business community, perhaps because its principal economic advisers never had to "meet a payroll." As I recall, the administration that preceded the current one was loaded with "payroll meeters". Although that administration might have had superb relations with business, these good relations did not translate into great economic performance. Rather, the economy generated the weakest employment growth in the postwar era and some of the weakest real economic growth, even before the onset of the recession in the first quarter of 2008. So, it is not entirely clear that having experienced business types on your economic advisory team is the key to superior, or even average, economic performance. But if the Obama administration is looking for a business type to add to his economic advisory team, I would nominate a cast-off from the prior administration - former Secretary of the Treasury Paul O'Neill. As the former CEO of Alcoa, Mr. O'Neill has plenty of experience in the business world, successful experience, I might add. And, of course, having served in the prior administration, he knows where the men's rooms are located, so he could hit the ground running. By the way, why was Mr. O'Neill dismissed from the economic team of the prior administration? He wanted to begin taking actions to reduce the projected long-term federal budget deficits. As you may recall, such endeavors would have clashed with the view of the VP of the prior administration - deficits don't matter. Mr. O'Neill also has been involved in private-sector projects to explore ways to help slow down the increases in health-care costs - something critical to the success in reducing projected out-year federal budget deficits.