Jobs Or Deficit, Or Neither

By Big Tent Democrat, Section Obama Administration
Posted on Wed Jan 19, 2011 at 10:59:52 AM EST
Tags: (all tags)

Share This: Digg!

“The public didn’t sense that everyone in the White House was waking up thinking about how to create jobs,” said John Podesta, the former Clinton White House chief of staff and president of the Center for American Progress who directed Obama’s transition. “It seemed like they were waking up every day thinking about how to pass more bills."

Via Atrios, this Peter Baker NYTimes Magazine story is depressing:

The path from crisis to anemic recovery was marked by turmoil inside the White House. The economic team fractured repeatedly over philosophy (should jobs or deficits take priority?

How about neither. No significant progress on unemployment and a record deficit! Capped off with The Deal! Just terrible. More . . .

Geithner has the President's confidence:

With Geithner as its anchor, a new economic team is being built around Bill Clinton-era figures like William Daley, Gene Sperling and Jack Lew, a group assembled to joust with Republicans instead of one another. Rather than responding to crises or putting into motion grand macroeconomic theories, they will focus on pushing the recovery into higher gear while at the same time figuring out how to reduce the deficit — two goals that some see as incompatible in the short term.

Geithner is a corrupt incompetent. It is a travesty that he remains in place and more powerful than ever.

Speaking for me only

< Silly Season | Doc Fixes And Donut Holes >

Legal

Nothing on this site should be construed as legal advice. TalkLeft does not give legal advice.

TalkLeft is not responsible for and often disagrees with material posted in the comments section. Read at your own risk.

Jobs Or Deficit, Or Neither | 29 comments (29 topical)

Readers Must Login or Create an Account to Comment

Previous articles (5.00 / 2) (#1)
by NYShooter on Wed Jan 19, 2011 at 11:15:15 AM EST

regarding the economic battles within the W.H. depicted scenes where the entire team unanimously took one position (generally favorable to the great mass of middle class citizens) with one notable exception taking the Wall St. position. In every case, the exception, Timmie, prevailed.

No more excuses for Obama..... Geithner's views are Obama's views.

Obama is backing and putting in (none / 0) (#4)
by MO Blue on Wed Jan 19, 2011 at 12:14:32 PM EST

place the policies that he prefers. Wall St., corporate American and wealthy individuals have the big campaign bucks he needed to win in 2008 and to win again in 2012. They will also provide him with a lucrative income stream once he is no longer president. Their agenda is his agenda.

He knows that Democratic voters have bought in to the meme that they have no where else to go and will continue to vote for the lesser of two evils regardless of how much he screws them over. No reason not to continue to go after the big bucks.


Obama is the best Republican (none / 0) (#5)
by observed on Wed Jan 19, 2011 at 12:17:20 PM EST

President ever.


I thought (5.00 / 1) (#7)
by NYShooter on Wed Jan 19, 2011 at 12:57:14 PM EST

it was Claire McCaskill's daughter, and her 500 million "youth" vote friends, sending in a dollar apiece.

I was wrong?


Nah (none / 0) (#8)
by MO Blue on Wed Jan 19, 2011 at 01:09:53 PM EST

It was the campaign pins and mugs that financed Obama's small donor campaign. :-(

BTW, Claire McCaskill's daughter better get busy to help save mom's senate seat.


When you have time (none / 0) (#13)
by NYShooter on Wed Jan 19, 2011 at 02:02:34 PM EST

read this and be mesmerized.

Obama's lucky the majority of people are illiterate; this essay says it all.


I would but... (none / 0) (#14)
by sj on Wed Jan 19, 2011 at 02:23:05 PM EST

blog is open to invited readers only

: Weird - I read it a couple of hours ago (none / 0) (#23)
by ruffian on Wed Jan 19, 2011 at 03:43:10 PM EST

and it was not blocked. Now it is blocked to me too.

Won't let me in (none / 0) (#15)
by MO Blue on Wed Jan 19, 2011 at 02:25:27 PM EST

Message: This blog is open to invited readers only

Evidently don't have the sign in required.


Jeez, sorry (none / 0) (#26)
by NYShooter on Wed Jan 19, 2011 at 04:39:01 PM EST

Would I be violating some intergalactic-inter-tube-laws if I printed it out and linked to it?

I read a lot, but rarely recommend to others. But this piece is an exception and would love to at least make it available to the few on TL here.


Might be against copyright laws (none / 0) (#27)
by MO Blue on Wed Jan 19, 2011 at 05:48:42 PM EST

to print the whole thing. Maybe you could copy some of it for us.


: Thanks (none / 0) (#29)
by NYShooter on Wed Jan 19, 2011 at 05:54:44 PM EST

I'll check it out

You are so right. I keep saying he is doing what (none / 0) (#6)
by mogal on Wed Jan 19, 2011 at 12:34:27 PM EST

the money that elected him wants him to do!


It's not like (5.00 / 1) (#2)
by lilburro on Wed Jan 19, 2011 at 11:27:50 AM EST

some magical new idea that doesn't require fighting with Congress is going to fall from the sky. If Obama is going to continually let Congress dictate the terms of his ideas, his proposals are going to continually shrink in effectiveness.

Continually amazing that the guy with the 50+% (5.00 / 1) (#9)
by ruffian on Wed Jan 19, 2011 at 01:19:58 PM EST

approval rating is taking his marching orders from the body with the 30-% approval rating.


: They're too conservative (none / 0) (#12)
by lilburro on Wed Jan 19, 2011 at 01:40:46 PM EST

to do what he wants. He's too conservative to push them to do what he wants. Etc...

I know we're supposed to be comforted (5.00 / 5) (#3)
by Anne on Wed Jan 19, 2011 at 11:33:09 AM EST

by the knowledge that the most recent crop of economic brains are "Clinton-era" types, but given who these people are, what their philosophies are, I'm really, really not. And I'm getting tired of being treated as if I'm just dumb enough to buy anything with "Clinton" in front of it.

The real travesty is that these are the people Obama identifies with and shares an economic mindset - and probably the people Geithner wanted.

As long as Geithner is in charge, I think it is reasonable to expect the worst.

As I see it (none / 0) (#18)
by jbindc on Wed Jan 19, 2011 at 03:13:46 PM EST

The "Clinton-types" are put out there more as an inoculation against blame (especially for those Dems who have since left the party or are "bitter knitters"). See, this way the administration can say, "Hey, we used Clinton people and didn't get better, so please stop hating on us."


Hey, maybe this is Obama's (none / 0) (#21)
by Anne on Wed Jan 19, 2011 at 03:33:27 PM EST

11-dimensional way of eroding Bill's popularity!

Because there's probably no greater satisfaction for Barack Obama than supplanting Bill Clinton as Most Popular Democratic President AND beating his out-of-office poll numbers...

I'm really just so over the constant appointment of Clinton re-treads; I'm even over the Bill Clinton good-soldier bailouts.


: The more Clinton does (5.00 / 1) (#28)
by MO Blue on Wed Jan 19, 2011 at 05:51:07 PM EST

good-soldier bailouts on bad polices, the less popular he becomes to me.

: Me too (none / 0) (#22)
by jbindc on Wed Jan 19, 2011 at 03:36:45 PM EST

If we are going to compare things like poll numbers to the Clinton era, then we need to compare everything, such as unemployment numbers, average household income, housing prices, number of military casualties per year, etc.
And unfortunately, the appointees are the only Dems in the last 30 years who have experience. But once again, it looks like the children are in need of adult supervision, but instead they are getting the teenager who invites her boyfriend over to make out and ignores the kids.

Clinton types (5.00 / 1) (#10)
by dandelion on Wed Jan 19, 2011 at 01:20:49 PM EST

There are Clinton types and then there are Clinton types. I wish Obama would listen to former Clinton types like Stiglitz and Reich instead of just the one side of the Clinton-type equation: the Summers/Rubin type and their protege Geithner.

I remember the Reagan Recession and then the Bush I recession and the disaster that seemed to be -- unemployment a crisis that had everyone's hair on fire. The foreclosure crisis facing farmers -- remember FarmAid? The way Bush I was mocked when in the face of high unemployment and suffering he didn't seem to know what a grocery scanner looked like.

The complacency now in the face of significantly higher and longer-lasting unemployment is shocking to me. The unemployed seemd to be "disappeared" and/or we now have a moral and political philosophy that's decided they "deserve" their unemployment and that even the gods themselves are helpless in the face of such destiny.

When in fact there's a well-researched and previously used playbook detailing exactly what works.

Exactly how high would the unemployment rate (none / 0) (#11)
by ruffian on Wed Jan 19, 2011 at 01:23:02 PM EST

have to be before it was considered the top priority, without question?

High unemployment has real benefits (5.00 / 3) (#16)
by MO Blue on Wed Jan 19, 2011 at 02:29:50 PM EST

for some segments. The two top benefits IMO:

a. drives down wages and leads to record high corporate earnings.

b. Eliminates the recruitment problem for the military and enables it to continue fighting our endless wars.


Yep. (5.00 / 1) (#17)
by inclusiveheart on Wed Jan 19, 2011 at 03:08:28 PM EST

There are some people out there who are saying:

"And they talk about wage stagnation and deflation like it's a bad thing."

Corporate profits are way up! The intention here is to drive down our economy so that wages are cheaper and cheaper. The problem is that I simply can't figure out how we will be able to carry our our patriotic shopping duties if we keep driving wages down further and further. Of course, there's always China where the shopping boom is just starting to take off.


And big business is creating jobs (5.00 / 1) (#19)
by Towanda on Wed Jan 19, 2011 at 03:26:04 PM EST

with stimulus funds!

Jobs in China.


Yeah, and you're welcome to (5.00 / 1) (#20)
by inclusiveheart on Wed Jan 19, 2011 at 03:29:57 PM EST

take one of those new jobs just as soon as you agree to get paid something on the order of $1 per day.


: Jobs will come back to the U.S. (none / 0) (#25)
by MO Blue on Wed Jan 19, 2011 at 04:04:33 PM EST

when our workers become one of the lowest paid in the global economy. With the way our government helps train and move jobs to newer environments (countries) the moment a current outsourcing provider seeks higher wages, it will take a while.

Even as cynical as I am I had not considered that (none / 0) (#24)
by ruffian on Wed Jan 19, 2011 at 03:45:12 PM EST

You are exactly right of course.
