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Furmanology

Started by Will Wilkinson · 1 year ago

Chris Hayes quoting Steve Clemons on Obama’s appointment of Jason Furman to head his economic team:
But calling a spade a spade, it’s clear that Furman is no Dean Baker or Robert Blecker or Jared Bernstein—all important economists who have been far more right as of late than the Rubin crowd in anticipating the stress points [...] ... Continue reading »

3 comments

  • kevin

    1 year ago

    Can we really assume that Obama is signaling his secret inclinations? Perhaps he is merely pandering to highly informed, wealthy people (for their votes and delicious money) , but his actual inclinations are leftwing/populist.

    I really have no idea what Obama's genuine inclinations are, Obama himself says he functions as a Rorschach test, people project what they want to see onto him.

    Maybe thats why so many youngish libertarians think he's a closet market guy.
    reply
  • afrosensation

    1 year ago

    I think the one area where Obama has clearly indicated his "secret inclinations" is with his ecoomic team. Remember that his key economic adviser is Austan Goolsbee, who as David Friedman has pointed out, is an unabashed pro-market economist who just happens to be a Democrat.

    I think an interesting sub-text of the Democratic primary was how Obama was able to get away with openly associating with a center-right economic policy team without getting called out by more partisan liberals (ok, so he got no love from Krugman). He did almost get into trouble with Goolsbee and the whole Canada-NAFTA flap but they just hod from view until the primary was over and promptly trotted him out again...

    Of course all this may be political "signalling"....
    reply
  • Dain

    1 year ago

    I'm with Afro. (That sounds funny.)

    I'd think that Obama's overheard mumbling about poor, uneducated people disliking trade is another clue to his essentially upper class (relatively trade friendly) economic inclinations.
    reply

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