If you don't know the answers then hire people that do, or at least the best folks you can get your hands on to at least ARTICULATE what you are trying to do. In this the Bush Administration has been a total failure.
Obama is putting together a very capable economic team. Christina Romer (interviewed in my second book), Tim Geithner, Larry Summers. Christina Romer is probably the #2 scholar on the Depression after Ben Bernanke. They are all top flight scholars and know the score. Would you rather the president-elect start pulling names from the economics faculty at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst?
From the UMASS web site:
"The Department of Economics is a jewel in the crown of the University of Massachusetts at Amherst...It has a highly distinguished faculty working within several different traditions in economics: Marxian, post-Keynesian, institutionalist, historical, non-Marxian radical political economy, and feminist economics. Many members of the faculty enjoy national and international reputations for the quality, originality, and relevance of their work. " Relevance of their work?
"The Department of Economics is a jewel in the crown of the University of Massachusetts at Amherst...It has a highly distinguished faculty working within several different traditions in economics: Marxian, post-Keynesian, institutionalist, historical, non-Marxian radical political economy, and feminist economics. Many members of the faculty enjoy national and international reputations for the quality, originality, and relevance of their work. " Relevance of their work?
Read this for a run down on Christina Romer: http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2008/11/24/who-is-christina-romer/
5 comments:
Thank you for this post. Obama definitely seems to moving toward the 'center' again. It will be interesting to see who his pick for Secretary of Labor will be.
Dear Anon: U R welcome and thanks for visiting. He had better run to the center. President-elect Obama will soon be President Obama. Once again the lessons of history can be his guide. He will be the President of this country and not of the Democratic party. If he lives this, he has a chance to be successful. If not, the creatures of Congress will rip his guts out like they did to Jimmy Carter. Carter pandered to the uber-left of his party and was eviscerated by his own putative allies. There is going to have to come a time when Obama tells Henry Waxman, Barney Frank and Nancy Pelosi "No" and means it. If he can't bring himself to do that, he has no chance.
In other news Michael Moore is calling for the auto industry to be nationalized...
The Six Miracles of Socialism
1. There's no unemployment, but nobody actually works.
2. No one works, but everyone gets paid.
3. Everyone gets paid, but there's nothing to buy with the money.
4. No one can buy anything, but everyone owns everything.
5. Everyone owns everything, but no one is satisfied.
6. No one is satisfied, but 99% of the people vote for the system.
~Bennett Owen, National Review in 1990
I lived in socialism (Poland) and I can certainly attest to the "miracles" that you posted. That's pretty funny but also a little scary.
As for the auto industry, I do not see a reason for the existence of three huge and inefficient auto makers if there is nobody who is interested to buy cars in the medium term. Strategically, I believe some sort of auto industry should survive for the same reasons there is agriculture. However, there may not be any other solution to overcapacity than just scaling down.
Happy Thanksgiving!
His economic appointments are really second to none. I have to admit that I am pleasantly surprised. Let's hope that he moves to the center as fast as a cheetah in hot pursuit of a gazelle. The big question still are state and labor departments.
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