Obama to name Volcker to head markets panel

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By Jeff Mason

CHICAGO (Reuters) - Barack Obama will name former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker to chair a panel to advise the U.S. president-elect on stabilizing financial markets and averting a painful recession, transition officials said on Wednesday.

The move is another step towards tackling the problems ailing the U.S. economy and is part of an aggressive effort by Obama to demonstrate that his administration will face the global financial crisis head-on when he takes over on January 20.

Obama's transition team said he would make an "economic announcement" at 10:45 a.m. EST (3:45 p.m. GMT) at his third news conference of the week, following a similar event on Tuesday, when he presented his picks to head the White House budget office.

Transition officials said Obama policy adviser Austan Goolsbee, a University of Chicago economist, would be the panel's staff director.

Volcker, 81, has been an important economic adviser to Obama on economic issues. As Federal Reserve chairman in the early 1980s, Volcker is credited with taming inflation through policies that also contributed to a recession at the time.

Obama, who succeeds President George W. Bush, seems already to be taking the reins as financial market players increasingly tune out the current president and focus instead on the next U.S. leader.

In addition to naming his top economic advisers, Obama has come closer to forming his national security team, with reports saying that Republican Robert Gates will stay on as defence secretary and retired Marine Gen. James Jones will take over as national security adviser.

Those appointments, along with New York Sen. Hillary Clinton as secretary of state, are likely to be made early next week, after the November 27 U.S. Thanksgiving holiday.

FOCUS ON THE ECONOMY

For now Obama has put his focus squarely on the economy, pledging a costly stimulus package that he urged the next Congress to pass quickly.

On Tuesday, he vowed to cut billions of dollars in wasteful government spending.

But questions remain about both goals. Obama declined to put a figure on the stimulus package -- other Democrats have said it could cost hundreds of billions of dollars -- and he did not identify specific government programs to be cut to help pay for it.

Analysts said Obama's daily economic pronouncements showed the next president stepping into a leadership void left by Bush.

"Confidence in Bush as an effective president has eroded so substantially that he is no longer taken seriously," said Paul Beck, a professor of political science at Ohio State University.

"There is, of course, much more confidence in Obama or he would not have been elected as president. And, he is the president-in-waiting, so the only alternative the country has to Bush as a leader, especially in a period when the markets have failed and government must play an enlarged role in them."

Obama has not shied away from telling struggling industries like banks and automakers to take responsibility for their ailing position in the economy.

In an interview with the ABC television network, Obama said bank executives should forego their bonuses this year.

(Editing by Philip Barbara and David Storey)

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