‘Black’ mark on Fink as treas. sec.

PEOPLE who know BlackRock CEO Larry Fink say he yearns to be Joe Biden’s treasury secretary if the former veep is elected president in November. Because of that, he has been desperately burnishing his progressive bona fides.

That means voicing support for causes like environmentalism and “stakeholder rights,” demanding that corporate boards focus on society instead of just shareholders. As this column reported last week, he also has imposed an officeromance policy designed to root out any possible #MeToo issues among his 16,000 employees, whether real or imagined.

But Fink is given low odds to be the nation’s top money man, Biden insiders tell me. Fink is certainly qualified for the job; he’s a former bond trader, money manager and a longtime Wall Street executive, who started his own asset-management firm and built it into the world’s largest as BlackRock manages more than $7 trillion in assets.

During his 40-plus-year career in finance, he’s also done significant work for the government; BlackRock has served as one of the Federal Reserve’s top financial advisers since the 2008 financial crisis.

The problem for Fink is that he’s got Wall Street on his résumé, which no amount of virtue-signaling can erase. “I love Larry, but why have that fight with the Elizabeth Warren types when there are other good candidates?” said one Biden insider, referring to the powerful and famously anti-Wall Street Massachusetts senator who will certainly raise a stink if Fink is allowed to have his signature on the dollar bill.

Biden isn’t said to be in serious talks on the subject just yet, but his advisers are, and here are the names being floated, according to Bloomberg: Lael Brainard, of the Federal Reserve Board; and Roger Ferguson, formerly of the Fed and currently CEO of Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association/College Retirement Equities Fund (TIAACREF), which isn’t seen as too Wall Streety because it manages money for academics, a key Democratic constituency. And possibly, Fink nemesis Elizabeth Warren, which is maybe why he has indicated that for now he isn’t interested in going to DC.