On 6 August 2010, Bloomberg reports Romer Resigns in 2nd Exit for Obama Economy Team. Similar report from the Washington Post.
-RichardH
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On 6 August 2010, Bloomberg reports Romer Resigns in 2nd Exit for Obama Economy Team. Similar report from the Washington Post.
-RichardH
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I am singularly unimpressed with Peter Cohan. After quoting what you said, he goes on to say:
The economic mechanism is demand. If the private consumer won’t supply it, then the government has to supply it. It has to lead to private sector spending because business won’t be able to fulfill government demand without new employees if that demand is large enough.
He still doesn’t get it. No other incentive can make the private industry spend the money if there are no customers. The government has to be the customer in the short term.
My solution is to tax the $1.8 trillion dollars sitting idle and have the government spend it. There are two effects of this policy. First, for lower level of deficits, we get some idle money to go to work. Second, less of the $1.8 trillion will sit idle by business’s own actions if business knows that they either have to use it or lose it.
Emily Kaiser writes in Reuters, Broke states pose growing threat to recovery.
-RichardH
A friend, who was on the White House staff of President Jimmy Carter, asked me to lunch today after I had pointed him to George Packer’s The Empty Chamber–Just How Broken is the Senate?.
He said that we shouldn’t read too much into Romer’s resignation. Many staff members only stay for 18-24 months on the job. That was true in his case, too.
Regarding the Packer article, he said we need Congressmen who are grown-up moderates and who are pledged to talking across the aisle. We need to find a way to identify and fund those kinds of candidates.
Amen.
-RichardH
Early this morning, I was in correspondence with Peter Cohan (professor, author, blogger) about Romer’s resignation and the economy. Cohan asked if he could quote me (anonymously) in his post on Daily Finance. Romer’s Departure Offers an Opportunity to Rethink U.S. Economic Policy. I am the “MIT-educated former finance professor arguing the Keynesian view’ in the article.”
In addition, I said, “I’m sure that Summers and Obama are just as frustrated as Romer.”
Further, I said, “The only way out of this gridlock is for the liberals to win bigger
majorities in the Senate and in the House. The 2008 Obama campaign
organization should send out every man, woman, and child on the 2010
equivalent of “The Big Schlep” to tell your grandparents and every one
else how the Republicans are undermining our economy and our society.
Send Axelrod and Emanuel and other members of the Administration on
the road to proselytize.
“We need federal and state funds to start rebuilding infrastructure
(Where the heck are those shovel-ready projects?), paying teachers,
paying doctors serving Medicare/Medicaid patients, funding research,
etc. No one else but the government(s) are inclined to do that and we
need to fund them to do so.
“Sigh. But none of that is going to happen, is it?
“On the other hand, blaming Romer or Geithner or Summers or Obama
doesn’t help. That just makes it less likely that Democrats and
Independents will go out and vote for Democrats.”
-RichardH
I should have started out by saying Christina Romer may have been a good economist, but she was not a good politician about economics.
She couldn’t hold an audience to make her case. She made a lousy case. Maybe she thought that being head of the council on economics was principally for coming up with economic policy. You can come up with the best policies in the world, but if you can’t sell it, why bother?
I just don’t get it. The economy is our winning topic, but Obama and the Democrats are letting the Republicans redefine it into our losing topic.
My previous post GOP Wrecks Economy To Win Votes has such a simple explanation to educate the voters with.
If we can’t get the voters frightened by what the Republicans will do to wreck the economy, then are pretty ineffective. If the Republicans can put in the effort to convince people of a lie, why can’t we put in more effort to convince them of the truth?
If our side is afraid to talk about the economy, then we lose. We cannot be frightened to talk about it because it looks bad. We have to gather our courage and shout about what has to be our winning subject, “It’s the economy, stupid” (not you RichardH. You aren’t stupid.)
In the presidential campaign, the Obama team figured out what they had to win on. If they couldn’t win on their chosen topic, they knew they couldn’t win. The economy is the topic this time around. If we can’t win on it, then we ought to go down trying.
If we don’t try to turn the debate on the economy to our favor, then all is lost.