Word: economisters
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What about the spending? Again, there has been an Alice in Wonderland quality to much of the criticism, as if economist John Maynard Keynes were a fraud and government spending couldn't possibly create jobs--especially spending on biomedical research, education about sexually transmitted diseases or other programs that sound vaguely liberal and exotic. Jobs in biomedical research and sex education are real jobs. Granted, some spending proposals would work faster and better than others. But it's telling that House minority leader John Boehner ridicules programs to weatherize low-income homes--which would create jobs in a hurry, save...
...billion for "rural waste-disposal programs." Principled conservatives worry that it's so big, it will institutionalize Big Government; principled liberals worry that it won't be big enough to resuscitate a flatlined economy. And a bipartisan chorus--including Clinton Administration budget chief Alice Rivlin and Reagan Administration economist Martin Feldstein--has argued that the stimulus package ought to be all about stimulus. Those people want to focus on fighting the recession, and they don't see Pell Grants, renewable-energy subsidies, health-care technology and Head Start as the best ways to do that. "Many of them are worthy...
...caught up with economist Sylvia Ann Hewlett, who has studied these issues forever. She's the founder of the Hidden Brain Drain task force, a group of more than 50 companies--including GE, Goldman Sachs and our own mother ship, Time Warner--that are exploring how employers can hang on to the people they can least afford to lose. Especially when companies need to reinvent themselves to survive, she warns, they can't afford the huge costs associated with stressed-out talent: "It's not good for the bottom line," she says, "and it's not good for individuals...
...Martin Feldstein, the conservative economist who has been advising the White House as well as Hill Democrats and Republicans, was an early advocate for the stimulus but turned on the bill the House produced. He says the Senate bill, unveiled on Tuesday, is equally wasteful. "[Obama's team] turned it over to the congressional staffs," Feldstein says, and the result is that the bill spends like Congress always spends: with an eye to benefiting regional constituents. The problem, he contends, is that the bill's goal is to boost overall national spending, which is a very different thing...
...this climate, many people resent seeing billions of tax dollars leak outside the country. But if this 'buy American' clause is adopted, it will make it harder for those in Europe in arguing for markets to stay open," says Simon Tilford, chief economist at the London-based Centre for European Reform (CER) think tank. "Also, after Europe's huge expectations for Obama, there is bound to be a huge disillusion with him if the U.S. goes down this road...