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Barack Obama’s economic team is quickly taking shape, said Sebastian Mallaby in _The Washington Post_, and “not a moment too soon.” Led by experienced “pragmatists who excel at imaginative

improvisation”—New York Federal Reserve President Tim Geithner as Treasury Secretary and Larry Summers as the top White House economist—the team has a lot of work to do. Well, the choice of

Geithner “guarantees the smoothest transition from the current Treasury team,” said _The Wall Street Journal_ in an editorial. He knows all the major players, “knows as well as anyone which

banks are vulnerable,” and has spent much of his career negotiating bailouts and soothing financial panics. But many of his views—on taxes, say—are “something of a mystery.” The markets

don’t seem to mind, said Daniel Gross in _Slate_. They “shot up nearly 7 percent” Friday afternoon, after Geithner’s name was leaked. What we do know about Geithner is that he has “a great

deal in common with Obama”—age, number of children, experience living abroad. Also, Geithner, a 20-year “meritocratic bureaucrat,” is “a sort of community organizer for the financial world.”

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From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox. From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter,

get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox. So no “knock on Hank Paulson,” but can’t President Bush appoint Geithner now? said Thomas Friedman in _The New York Times_. We’re

in a financial “Code Red,” and it’s obvious that “Bush can’t mobilize the tools to defuse” it. We need a new economic team, new ideas, and a shot of new confidence. The arrival of Obama’s

team wouldn’t be “a magic wand, but it would help.” A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com