Word: okun
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Even such liberal economists as Arthur Okun of The Brookings Institution concede that controls could be lifted on the products that are most scarce. But that is not the only answer. The increasing dependence of the U.S. on foreign raw materials indicates that the nation has been living beyond its means. In the energy field, in particular, the country badly needs a conservation program to prevent waste. As Government spokesmen have pointed out, if every thermostat in the U.S. were set three degrees lower this winter, the nation could save at least 300,000 bbl. of fuel...
...slackening except for some items. After rising exuberantly for four straight months, retail sales slumped by a full $1 billion in April, to $41 billion. One reason: growth in personal income slowed in May for the third month in a row, climbing by a slim 0.5%. Says Arthur Okun, a member of TIME's Board of Economists: "The consumption figures look awfully sick for the second quarter...
Greenspan forecasts a real G.N.P. rise of 3.2% next year; he also sees profits dropping 1% below 1973 levels, which is only 2½% higher than Grove's pessimistic conclusion. Such a scenario, oddly, does not displease Arthur Okun, once chairman of Lyndon Johnson's Council of Economic Advisers, who likens it to "a case of sniffles, compared with the pneumonia of real recession...
...Okun even commends the Administration's restrictive fiscal and monetary policies, but expresses great worry about a lack of effective wage-price controls...
Some economists, like Arthur Okun, a member of TIME's Board of Economists, fault N.E.W. as an attempt to measure the unmeasurable; others, including Walter Heller, also a member of the board, applaud it as a step in the right direction. Samuelson himself admits that the N.E.W. is relatively primitive, but argues that "it is better to have an inaccurate sense of what we want than an accurate sense of what we do not want." He hopes that the inclusion of the N.E.W. concept in his textbook, which is used by nearly one-third of all college economics students...