Professor James Galbraith on Obama economics team
Posted by WARREN MOSLER on June 10th, 2008
More on Obamanomincs:
- He knows that government spending is not revenue constrained.
- He knows solvency is not an issue for the government.
- He knows the ‘pay-go’ notion is flawed and works against our standard of living.
- He knows the criticism of Bush leaving the debt to our children is absurd.
- He knows there is no operational risk of social security ‘running out of money.’
- He knows social security payments are not ‘paid for’ per se by taxes or the trust fund accounting.
- He knows the Fed is about price, and not quantity.
- He knows imports are a real benefit, exports a real cost.
- He knows our policy of blocking central banks and monetary authorities from accumulating $US financial assets is killing the goose that’s been laying the golden eggs.
- He knows that unemployment is the evidence that the deficit is too small.
- He knows that loans create deposits and reserves.
- He knows that savings is not needed to have funding for investment.
- He knows that our taxed advantage pension and retirement systems and programs reduce demand and cause the need for the government to run deficits to add that demand back.
- He knows the price level is a function of prices paid by govt. and not a function of interest rates set by the Fed.
- He knows the Saudis (and maybe Russians) are setting the price of crude.
- He knows this is causing a cost push ‘inflation’ that is punishing working people disproportionately.
- He knows biofuel policy is converting the world’s food supply to fuel and starving millions to death.
- And a lot more.
- And he knows the others on the Obama economic adviser list either don’t know, pretend to not know, or have long forgotten all the above.
- And he knows Obama’s vision can only accidentally be achieved with his current economic rhetoric.
- And I know he has a fighting chance to be heard.
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June 10th, 2008 at 2:36 pm
Yeah, but he also named Robert Rubin to the advisory team as well. Galbraith was a great choice, but Rubin sucks.
June 10th, 2008 at 8:05 pm
Agreed.
Obama seems to be very politically savvy. Not yet sure how to read this.
June 11th, 2008 at 9:30 am
[...] does this mean? It means, as Warren Mosler points out, that we may end up with a president who is at least exposed to some unconventional economic ideas, [...]
June 11th, 2008 at 11:57 am
How many economists are there who “know” these things? Before I found your blog by my own searching (prompted by Ron Paul no less), I had never heard of any of this. Just searching on Google Scholar is seems like Galbraith has written a couple of books, why is this view not challenging the mainstream economists more?
June 11th, 2008 at 12:09 pm
My guess is maybe only about 100, including recent phd’s from the UMKC.
And, of course, the readers of this blog.
:)
He challenges the mainstream on other issues, as he’s never considered ‘monetary economics’ and reserve accounting his strength, though from personal experience I know he’s better than most.