Obama's economic advisers. No wonder Al From has no problem with Obama

-snip-

Goolsbee has been a columnist for Slate.com and the NY Times, as well as a standup comedian. His economics are not meant as a joke, as I understand it. His columns are written very much in the same vein as fellow U. of Chicago neoclassical economist Steven Levitt’s “Freakonomics,” examining everyday problems such as “Why you get stuck for hours at O’Hare.” Most are fairly uncontroversial except for the swipe he took at Michael Moore’s “Sicko”, whose single-payer recommendations violate his free market principles.

Another adviser with a particular interest in health care is David Cutler, a Harvard economist who was also an adviser to Bill Clinton–surprise, surprise. Cutler wrote an article for the New England Journal of Medicine in 2006 asserting that “The rising cost … of health care has been the source of a lot of saber rattling in the media and the public square, without anyone seriously analyzing the benefits gained.”

Anxious to show the good side of rising costs, Cutler and a group of other economists defend the idea that a powerful and profitable medical industry can serve as an engine of economic growth in the USA as the wretched Gina Kolata reported in the August 22, 2006 NY Times.

-snip-

Another Harvard University adviser to Obama is Jeffrey Liebman, a Harvard economist who co-authored a paper on the feasibility of privatizing social security when he was an adviser to Bill Clinton. Apparently, the momentum toward adopting such a proposal was halted after the Monica Lewinsky affair put the president on the defensive. Liebman has co-authored a book on social security “reform” with Martin Feldstein, another Harvard economist who was–appropriately enough–the chairman of the Council of Economic Advisors under Ronald Reagan. In an article titled “The Rich, the Poor, and the Economists” that appeared in the January 2002 Monthly Review, Michael Yates notes the following:

http://louisproyect.wordpress.com/2008/01/09/obamas-economic-advisers/

Okay, no one but Kucinich. Or Gravel.

In other words, Edwards or no one.

profit from others misfortune and suffering

These economists? Harvard is the bastion for conservatism or something? :eyes:

I guess I'll go and put up a Web Site, and call Hillary Clinton and John Edwards, Neo-Con Iraq war voting nutz!

David Cutler is Dean of the Social Sciences Professor of Economics at Harvard University. He served in the administration of Bill Clinton and was an advisor to the presidential campaign of John Kerry.

Jeffrey B. Liebman is an American economist, currently the Malcolm Wiener Professor of Public Policy John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. He is also a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research, and a member of the Academic Advisory Committee, Center for American Progress.

Liebman teaches courses in social policy, public sector economics, and American economic policy. His research includes tax and budget policy, social insurance, poverty, and income inequality. Recently he has examined the impacts of government programs such as the Earned Income Tax Credit, Social Security, and housing vouchers.<1> From 1998 to 1999 he served as Special Assistant to the President for economic policy and coordinated the Clinton Administration's Social Security reform technical working group.<2>

Austan D. Goolsbee is an economist and is currently the Robert P. Gwinn Professor of Economics at the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business. He is also a Research Fellow at the American Bar Foundation<1>, Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research in Cambridge, Massachusetts<2>, and a member of the Panel of Economic Advisors to the Congressional Budget Office.

His research focuses on the Internet, the new economy, government policy, and taxes. He currently teaches a class on economics and policy in the telecom, media and technology industries.

In April 2006, Goolsbee began writing the monthly Economic Scene column for the New York Times. Prior to that he wrote the Dismal Science column for Slate.com, for which he won the 2006 Peter Lisagor Award for Exemplary Journalism. He has many published papers in various peer-reviewed journals. <6>

I hope so.

Like I said...I have a website too.

Reputable sources mean just that.

We need more vetting. If this is true it is disturbing.

what else is new?

NAFTA was such a brilliant brain fart. Wonder who's ass it came out off?

Yes, let us "vet". :eyes:

NAFTA? Obama is like Hillary on trade.

Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine, Former Secretary of Commerce Bill Daley and Obama Economic Advisor Austan Goolsbee to host conference call with the media

daley is the mayor`s brother-a democrat

kaine-democrat

Goolsbee-chicago a couple of blocks down the street in chicago


http://businomics.typepad.com/businomics_blog/2008/01/obamas-economic.html
Businomics Blog: Obama's Economic Advisor


"Here's a good interview on CNBC with Austan Goolsbee, Senator Obama's chief economic advisor. I don't buy his proposals, but he explains them fairly well here.

Warning: what a political candidate's economist says is not likely to be what the elected official does. Anyone remember Nixon's wage and price controls, or Bush's steel tariffs? Nixon's and Bush's economic advisors would rather have their daughters turn out like Britney Spears than have their president adopt such stupid policies."

Who our candidates are being advised by is very important, especially when talking about a neophyte. Remember how much influence Bush's advisers had?

I sure hope Obama doesn't listen to him.

Goolsbee on "Sicko" http://www.slate.com/id/2169454/

Once again the guy with the website is telling the truth. Here is Cutler saying rising health care costs are a good thing.

-snip-

Cutler's approach is radically different. He says that most health-care spending is actually good. Spending has been rising, he says, because it delivers positive, and measurable, economic value, and because it can do more things that Americans want. Therefore, Cutler says, we should focus on improving the quality of care rather than on reducing our consumption of it. Rather than pay less, he wants to pay more wisely -- to encourage health-care providers to do more of what they should and less of what is wasteful.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/13/magazine/13HEALTH.html

Q: What are the specific elements of your plan that will address the problems and keep the system solvent?

Liebman: The reform we came up with was based around four compromises. The first compromise was over how large the traditional Social Security system should be. We agreed that the amount of money going into the traditional benefit should be exactly 12.4 percent of payroll, no more and no less than the payroll tax today. We closed Social Security’s financing gap with a roughly equal combination of benefit cuts and new revenue.

Second, we agreed to add enough new revenue to maintain currently promised retirement income levels, but we devoted all of the new revenue to personal retirement accounts equal to 3 percent of payroll for every worker.

Third, we agreed that half of the revenue for the accounts would come from new worker contributions of 1.5 percent of payroll and half would come from diverting resources from the Social Security Trust Funds.

Fourth, we agreed to have personal retirement accounts in the plan, but the accounts were heavily regulated. So, in particular, they would be mandatory and when you get to retirement, you would be required to take out all your money in the form of an annuity a payment that lasts as long as you live. This ensures that people cannot squander all of their savings in the first few years of retirement.

Q: Why are personal retirement accounts such an important element to the Social Security system as we move forward?

Liebman: The benefit of having personal retirement accounts in the plan is that if we’re going to spread the burden across generations and start putting some extra revenue into the system now, we need to have a way to save that money so that it doesn’t get diverted to other purposes, as the current Social Security surplus often does. If you bring in new revenue but put all of the net new revenue into personal retirement accounts, then you have a way to spread the burden across even current workers in terms of making extra contributions today, but to do so in a way that you can really be sure is going to be contributing to people’s retirement incomes in the future.

http://www.ksg.harvard.edu/ksgnews/KSGInsight/liebman.htm

Here is an article in which he makes the case for Social Security privatization. http://harvardmagazine.com/2005/03/reforming-social-securit.html