The Progressive Economic Voices On Obama's Team That Disruptors Don't Want You To Know About

[KittyWampus]

Obama told Furman he wanted a diverse group of advisors for Economic Policy. Furman brought aboard these two people who sound pretty darned Progressive to me.

Jared Bernstein:

Jared Bernstein joined the Economic Policy Institute in 1992. His latest book is "Crunch: Why Do I Feel So Squeezed? (And Other Unsolved Economic Mysteries)," which follows "All Together Now: Common Sense for a Fair Economy." His areas of research include income inequality and mobility, trends in employment and earnings, low-wage labor markets and poverty, international comparisons, and the analysis of federal and state economic policies. He is the co-author of eight editions of the book The State of Working America and has published extensively in popular and academic venues.

James K. Galbraith

James Galbraith "is a progressive American economist who writes frequently for mainstream and liberal publications on economic topics. He is the son of renowned economist John Kenneth Galbraith. From 1981 to 1982, Galbraith served on the staff of the Congress of the United States, eventually as Executive Director of the Joint Economic Committee. In 1985, he was a guest scholar at the Brookings Institution.

He is the Chair of Economists for Peace and Security, formerly known as Economists Against the Arms Race and later Economists Allied for Arms Reduction (ECAAR), an international association of professional economists concerned with peace and security issues. He is also a Senior Scholar with the Levy Economics Institute of Bard College and Director of the University of Texas Inequality Project.

Galbraith's books include Balancing Acts: Technology, Finance and the American Future (1989), Created Unequal: The Crisis in American Pay (1998), and Industrial Change: A Global View, co-edited with Maureen Bemer, (2001)

He also contributes a column to The Texas Observer and writes regularly for The Nation, The American Prospect, Mother Jones, and The Progressive. His Op-Ed pieces have appeared in The New York Times, Washington Post, Boston Globe and other newspapers.

Galbraith argues that modern America has fallen prey to a wealthy, government-controlling "predatory class":

Today, the signature of modern American capitalism is neither benign competition, nor class struggle, nor an inclusive middle-class utopia. Instead, predation has become the dominant feature--a system wherein the rich have come to feast on decaying systems built for the middle class. The predatory class is not the whole of the wealthy; it may be opposed by many others of similar wealth. But it is the defining feature, the leading force. And its agents are in full control of the government under which we live. <1>

Galbraith is also highly critical of the Bush administration's foreign policy apropos of the Iraq invasion:

[NotThisTime]

1. Interesting, Furman did not bring aboard people who sound just like he does

Imagine that, differing opinions in one group of economic advisors... that's a good thing, means they'll be thinking.

[NotThisTime]

2. Duplicate post

[apocalypsehow]

3. These disruptor's keep finding novel ways to attack our nominee under the guise of "concern."

It really is quite transparent.

Thanks for posting this, K & R. :thumbsup:

[Skwmom]

7. Since when is concern for the future of our country a "novel"

way to attack our nominee? When you appoint an idiot that was part of the subprime mortgage crisis, I call that bad decision making. I plan to call the Obama campaign and voice my concern and I would advise others to do the same.

[TexasObserver]

4. Second that emotion.

As you could see by reaction to the attack thread earlier.

[KittyWampus]

5. please keep this kicked

[havocmom]

6. Roger that!

:kick:

[NashVegas]

8. Galbraith to Anti-Globalization Activists: Get Over It

The populist objective is to raise American wages, create American jobs, and increase the fairness and security of our economic system. In that sense, I am, and have always been, a populist’s populist. The best way to achieve these things, let me suggest, is to do them -- directly. Nothing in our trading system prevents this. In fact, our privileged financial position ought to make it comparatively easy.

Seen in this light, the Chinese willingness to supply us with cheap goods is a magnificent gift. It means we can truly have full employment without inflation.

Let me put the point even more starkly. It was imports, it was globalization -- and not the Federal Reserve -- that cured America's inflation problem in the early 1980s. That was painful, but the adjustment has been made. The war on inflation, which the Fed continues to pretend to fight, is actually over, and it has been over for several decades.

Why not take advantage, as we did in the late 1990s, when we drove the unemployment rate below four percent for three years, while wages rose? Nothing bad happened. And certainly nothing on the trade front is stopping us from doing it again.

http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=why_populists_need_to_rethink_trade

As for Bernstein, he's not an economist, his background is social welfare. IOW, on with the march for warm, fuzzy, global capitalism.

[Romulox]

9. Ouch. Another globalist "progressive". Any ANTI globalist voices surrounding Obama?

Sounds like he is building an economics echo chamber, even as most people name the economy as their #1 issue.

Triangulating toward the right on economics spells defeat in November.