Obama's Economic Team of Advisors

[Dover]

June 3, 2008
The List: Obama's Economists
We've mentioned these before in individual posts. Here's a unified list:

Economic policy advisors:

Jason Furman (director of economic policy) source bio
Austan Goolsbee (senior economic policy advisor), University of Chicago tax policy expert source Wikipedia website
Karen Kornbluh (policy director) source bio Wikipedia
David Cutler, Harvard health policy expert source Wikipedia website
Jeff Liebman, Harvard welfare expert source Wikipedia website
Michael Froman, Citigroup executive source bio
Daniel Tarullo, Georgetown law professor source bio
David Romer, Berkeley macroeconomist source website
Christina Romer, Berkeley economic historian source website
Richard Thaler, University of Chicago behavioral finance expert source Wikipedia

Robert Rubin, former Treasury Secretary source Wikipedia bio
Larry Summers, former Treasury Secretary source Wikipedia bio
Alan Blinder, former Vice-chairman of the Federal Reserve source Wikipedia bio website
Jared Bernstein, Economic Policy Institute labor economist source bio
James Galbraith, University of Texas macroeconomist source Wikipedia website

Paul Volcker, Chairman of the Federal Reserve 1979-1987 source Wikipedia
Laura Tyson, Berkeley international economist, Bill Clinton economic adviser source Wikipedia
Robert Reich, Berkeley public policy professor, former Secretary of Labor source Wikipedia weblog
Peter Henry, Stanford international economist source website
Gene Sperling, former White House economic adviser source Wikipedia

Other prominent economists who support Obama:
Brad Delong, Berkeley macroeconomist source Wikipedia website weblog
Joseph Stiglitz, 2001 Nobel laureate source Wikipedia
Edmund Phelps, 2006 Nobel laureate source Wikipedia
Ray Fair, Yale macroeconomist source Wikipedia
Dan McFadden, 2000 Nobel laureate source website
Robert Solow, 1987 Nobel laureate source Wikipedia

Prominent finance people who support Obama:
(not actually economists)
William Donaldson, Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Chair 2003-05 source Wikipedia
Arthur Levitt, SEC chair 1993-2001 source Wikipedia
David Ruder, SEC chair 1987-1989 source Wikipedia
Warren Buffet, investor, richest person in world source Wikipedia


http://econ4obama.blogspot.com/2008/06/obama-economic-advisors-and-economic.html


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Wal-Mart Defender To Direct Obama's Economic Policy
Appointment of Jason Furman Immediately Meets With Skepticism

June 10, 2008

Just days after clinching the Democratic presidential nomination, Senator Obama is naming as his economic policy director an economist who has clashed with critics of Wal-Mart by defending the company as a boon to poor Americans.

The appointment of Jason Furman, 37, a former Clinton administration official who is a visiting scholar at New York University, immediately met with skepticism from some who have faulted Wal-Mart for being stingy toward its workforce.

It's surprising because this guy seems to feel that Wal-Mart's low-wage, low-benefit business model is good for America. That's just flat-out wrong," the executive director of Wal-Mart Watch, David Nassar, said. "This guy helped to lend credibility to the Wal-Mart business model. That was disappointing then and it's disappointing now given this position," said Mr. Nassar, whose group is backed by a board that includes the president of the Service Employees International Union, Andrew Stern. Mr. Nassar quickly added that he was "not critiquing the Obama campaign."
A New York-based labor organizer and writer, Jonathan Tasini, said he was puzzled by the selection of Mr. Furman. "It's legitimate to give you pause," Mr. Tasini, who ran an unsuccessful primary challenge to Senator Clinton in 2006, said. "There have been concerns raised about where Obama's economic policies will trend," the writer said.

Mr. Tasini noted that, while Mr. Obama spurned labor groups by voting for a free-trade agreement with Peru, his past suggests he would be an ally of labor. "It's hard to believe that during his community organizing work in the poorest neighborhoods of his own city he didn't have something sink into him about income inequality. There's no way to read anything he has put out there as anything but rejection for the Wal-Mart model," Mr. Tasini said...>

http://www.nysun.com/national/obama-taps-wal-mart-defender-as-director/79665/

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Obama's Economic Brain Trust Breaks With `Status Quo'
May 10, 2008
Bloomberg

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601070&refer=politics&sid=a7Zdp3HDltW4


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Robert Rubin

Just days after the (Clinton) administration (including the Treasury Department) agrees to support the repeal (of Glass Steagell) Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin, the former co-chairman of a major Wall Street investment bank, Goldman Sachs, raises eyebrows by accepting a top job at Citigroup as Weill's chief lieutenant. The previous year, Weill had called Secretary Rubin to give him advance notice of the upcoming merger announcement. When Weill told Rubin he had some important news, the secretary reportedly quipped, "You're buying the government?"

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/wallstreet/weill/demise.html

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Obama's Curious Economic Adviser

CHICAGO -- In his curriculum vitae, Austan Goolsbee lists as his "other interests" -- other than teaching at the University of Chicago -- two activities: triathlons and improv comedy. Evidently he is a masochist with a sense of humor, so he is suited to participate in presidential politics, which he is doing as an adviser to Barack Obama.

Before they met in person, Obama, running for the Senate in 2004, asked Goolsbee a perplexing question. Obama's opponent, Alan Keyes, an African- American imported from Maryland by Illinois' shambolic Republican Party, had been asked whether he believed in reparations for slavery. Keyes said perhaps America could do what Rome did -- exempt descendants of former slaves from taxes for two generations. Obama asked Goolsbee how much that might cost. Goolsbee's two answers were: Hard to say. And: Trillions.

Goolsbee graduated from Yale and earned his doctorate from MIT before coming to the University of Chicago's business school, which gave to public life a giant of conservatism, George Shultz. The university's economics department has been adorned by the likes of Milton Friedman, George Stigler and Gary Becker, each a Nobel laureate, each a conservative by virtue of his inclination to expect more utility from markets than from government interventions therein.

Is Goolsbee dismayed about widening income inequality? Yes, but with a nuanced understanding. The stagnation of middle- and working-class incomes, and the anxiety this has generated, is, he says, a most pressing problem, but policymakers must be mindful about trying to address its root cause, which Goolsbee says is "radically increased returns to skill."...>

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2007/10/obamas_curious_economic_advise.html

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Obama Economic Adviser Says Reform Trade Policy, Diversify Energy Choices

http://www.cfr.org/publication/17103/obama_economic_adviser_says_reform_trade_policy_diversify_energy_choices.html

[Winterblues]

1. I believe Obama is assembling a force that will "Shock and Awe"

Republicans. I believe Obama is destined to become a historic figure along the lines of Lincoln and FDR. With the election of Obama, America will have turned a corner, and the new direction will bring peace and harmony for decades to come.

[fascisthunter]

2. "Wal-Mart Defender To Direct Obama's Economic Policy"

great :sarcasm:

[Dover]

3. Yep. I find some of his choices pretty disturbing...n/t

[Dover]

4. So.... any thoughts about Obama's advisors?

I'm guessing Obama is himself not a great economist, so I'm sure he's leaning heavily in favor of
the advise he's receiving.