Free Republic

Well … that Will is on this list does not surprise me. It’s the other two, publicly admitting the government can’t create jobs, nor can it turn the economy on again, now, that’s man bites dog stuff. Christiane Amanpour wonders what can the government do to get the economy moving again, and get business to begin spending some of it’s cash on hand, estimated at … ummm … Two trillion dollars? Two bites for your perusal. The first, Dr Krugman comes clean on the two trillion being horded.

A fight over the budget loomed on Sunday as a top aide to President Barack Obama warned of catastrophic consequences if Republicans follow through on threats to reject an increase in the nation's borrowing limit. Republicans, who will take control of the House of Representatives this week, are demanding spending cuts to curb the $1.3 trillion budget deficit and several have said they would oppose a higher debt ceiling if Obama does not agree to a range of painful cuts. White House economic adviser Austan Goolsbee accused Republicans of "playing chicken" with the nation's financial credibility. "This is not a...

3/13/2010 WASHINGTON (AP) - Confronting misgivings, even in his own party, President Barack Obama mounted a stout defense of his blueprint to overhaul the economy Thursday, declaring the national crisis is "not as bad as we think" and his plans will speed recovery. Barack Obama recently named Austan Goolsbee, the wanna-be comedian, to lead the Council of Economic Advisers. Goolsbee tells America that unemployment will remain high for, well, likely as long as Obama remains President: "I don't think the unemployment rate will be coming down significantly at any time in the near future," according to POLITICO's Mike Allen. Obama...

With President Obama's poor record on the economy, it isn't too surprising that he would want Mr. Austan Goolsbee to put a positive spin on the current economic conditions. Mr. Goolsbee, whose academic work was known for supposedly showing that increased tax rates didn't effect how hard people worked, has now been appointed as the head of the president's Council of Economic Advisors. But Goolsbee has become quite practiced for his ability to "spin" the news, not for his accuracy. We got a taste of his talents when he made the rounds on the Sunday talk shows rounds yesterday. On...

It’s a darned good thing that Austan Goolsbee is “young, energetic, and looks good on TV,” because otherwise this would look a lot like Jimmy Carter’s “Malaise” speech. Chris Wallace tries to get Goolsbee to discuss what kind of changes have been made to White House economic forecasts in 2010, while Goolsbee wants to talk about how difficult it was … in 2007, in Europe, or anywhere else than the US after almost two years of the Obama administration policies. The big takeaway is that Goolsbee and the White House expect no appreciable decline in the unemployment rate for the...

“We are sitting on a time bomb,” the mortgage analyst said — a huge increase in unconventional home loans like balloon mortgages taken out by consumers who cannot qualify for regular mortgages. The high payments, he continued, “are just beginning to come due and a lot of people who were betting interest rates would come down by now risk losing their homes because they can’t pay the debt.” He would have given great testimony at the current Senate hearings on subprime mortgage lending. The only problem is, he said it in 1981 — when soon after several of the alternative...

August 30, 2010 Goolsbee tells Blitzer: ‘We’ve got to be mindful,’ prevent a double dip recession Posted: August 30th, 2010 03:19 PM ET (CNN) - In an interview just taped for The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer, Austan Goolsbee, one of President Obama’s top political advisors and the chief economist for the White House Economic Recovery Advisory Board, said he doesn’t anticipate a double dip recession. But the economist added that economists should be “mindful” of the possibility.

This'll make you laugh. Back in November 2003 an economist named Austan Goolsbee from the University of Chicago wrote an op-ed piece for The New York Times criticizing a Labor Department announcement about job growth the month before. And he attacked the idea that the country had just experienced nothing more than a mild recession. "Unfortunately, underreporting unemployment has served the interest of both political parties," wrote Goolsbee. "The situation has grown so dire, though, that we can't tell whether the job market is recovering." OK, I promised you a laugh. So here it comes. Goolsbee no longer works at...

White House economic adviser Austan Goolsbee took home the top prize in the 16th annual "D.C.'s Funniest Celebrity" contest on Wednesday evening, and he did so in a very unconventional way. Instead of adopting a traditional comedic routine of joke buildup and punchline, Goolsbee peppered an otherwise expected stump speech on the Obama administration's goals with subtle asides that constituted a humorous, sarcastic, self-deprecating and conspiratorial insight into the administration's most accessible punchlines. The targets? Hillary Clinton, Sen. Ben Nelson, Rod Blagojevich, Sarah Palin and Fox News. As Goolsbee's routine unfolded, he adopted a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde persona;...

With President Obama expected tomorrow for the North American Leaders' Summit in Guadalajara, Mexico, a coalition of American legislators and activists took a message to the Mexican media, denouncing economic partnerships that would undermine national sovereignty and blasting Obama's failure to keep his promises on transparency and the renegotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement. Howard Phillips, chairman of The Conservative Caucus and head of the Coalition to Block the North American Union, spoke to Mexican print, television and radio media about the summit, which was known in previous years as the North American Security and Prosperity Partnership, or...

Andy McCarthy demolished White House Official Austin Goolsbee's interview this morning: I caught a panel on which Obama economic advisor Austin Goolsbee conceded that the administration had previously predicted unemployment would top out at around 8%, that it was now up to 9.4%, and that double-digit unemployment was a distinct possibility in the near future. Goolsbee didn't resort to the administrations's blather about "saving or creating jobs," but he did repeat its fustian about how last month's loss of 345,000 jobs (resulting in a half percentage point jump in the jobless rate) is somehow good news because it beat predictions...

Administration blames Bush for GM crisis By Mike Soraghan Posted: 06/07/09 11:24 AM [ET] The Obama administration has a familiar response to criticism of the General Motors bailout – they inherited this mess from George W. Bush. Austan Goolsbee, a senior economic adviser to President Obama, said the administration's options were sharply limited by President Bush's handling of the auto industry, and accused the prior administration of running out the clock. "They shook up the can. They opened the can and handed [it] to us in our laps," Goolsbee said on Fox News Sunday. "When George Bush put money into...

From reining in executive pay to taxing the foreign profits of U.S. companies, the Obama administration is taking aim at the wealthiest segments of society. .... With the Obama administration "moving ahead on so many fronts," the frenzy of activity eventually could draw comparisons to the New Deal, predicted economist Robert Gordon of Northwestern University. "It will be seen as a watershed." Anyone with doubts should tune into Austan Goolsbee, a University of Chicago economist and Obama campaign adviser who holds an important White House job. Asked in an interview if an inflection point for the rich has arrived, Goolsbee...

As he battles the economic downturn, President Barack Obama is bracing Americans for a recovery different than any in recent memory – not a go-go return to prosperity like the 1990s but a slow, steady climb to stability. “We know that an economy built on reckless speculation, inflated home prices, and maxed-out credit cards does not create lasting wealth. It creates the illusion of prosperity, and it’s endangered us all,” Obama said recently. But what Obama rarely says about ending the “cycle of bubble and bust” is this: he’s prepared to intervene to make sure that kind of red-hot growth...

"We've been facing this dynamic with the bondholders in which they've been holding out on some things on the presumption that, well, maybe the government will just keep bailing us out whenever we run out of money," Austan Goolsbee, a member of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, told CNBC television. "That's just not going to happen. They're going to have to make some sacrifices." "If they're wanting to play chicken that seems like a bad idea," said Goolsbee, a member of the administration's taskforce on auto restructuring. Obama on Monday ordered GM and Chrysler to redouble efforts to...

As the Obama administration struggled to conjure up outrage at corporate America this month, it was a senior economic aide, Austan Goolsbee, who was first to channel the populist tone. “I don’t see why these guys can order dinner in a restaurant,” Goolsbee ranted on “Hardball,” “much less be getting these bonuses!” Later, on CNN, he suggested AIG executives be awarded a “Nobel Prize — for evil.” Goolsbee, an economic adviser since Barack Obama’s 2004 Senate campaign, has emerged as a ubiquitous spokesman for the president’s economic policy. In an administration that brags about ignoring “cable chatter,” he’s a world-class...

Barack Obama's top economic adviser reiterated for Boulder business leaders Wednesday the campaign's message in the wake of even more bad news from Wall Street. Austan Goolsbee, senior economic adviser for Democratic presidential nominee Obama's campaign, told the Boulder Chamber of Commerce the recent swoon in stock prices and the housing market bust was "the very culmination of eight years of a failed philosophy." Goolsbee's presentation at Level 3 Communication's headquarters in Broomfield was scheduled before the failure of the investment bank Lehman Brothers and government bailout of insurance giant AIG this week. Information handed out to visitors did not...

Obama, totally not saying the Pledge of Allegiance. Photo: Getty Images Barack Obama must be wondering how the worst press he’s received practically all campaign season came down just before today’s primaries — his chance to close the deal. He can look inward for answers. The big story, of course, is the meeting an Obama advisor, Austin Goolsbee, had with a Canadian official about NAFTA. After Canadian TV reported that Goolsbee had assured the Canadian official that basically all Obama’s tough talk on NAFTA was political maneuvering, the Obama campaign denied the meeting ever took place. Then, on cue,...

The NAFTA Dance continues. After Canadian broadcaster CTV reported that Barack Obama’s campaign told Canadian diplomats that his opposition to NAFTA was just campaign demagoguery, the Obama campaign denied any contacts at all. CTV then named Austan Goolsbee as the senior advisor who contacted the Canadian consulate in Chicago, telling Georges Rioux that the protectionist rhetoric should not be taken seriously, and Obama and Goolsbee continued their denials. Now the Canadians themselves have taken the next step, releasing an internal report of the conversation, and Goolsbee now says he got misquoted: Barack Obama’s senior economic policy adviser said Sunday that...

CHICAGO -- In his curriculum vitae, Austan Goolsbee lists as his "other interests" -- other than teaching at the University of Chicago -- two activities: triathlons and improv comedy. Evidently he is a masochist with a sense of humor, so he is suited to participate in presidential politics, which he is doing as an adviser to Barack Obama. Before they met in person, Obama, running for the Senate in 2004, asked Goolsbee a perplexing question. Obama's opponent, Alan Keyes, an African American imported from Maryland by Illinois' shambolic Republican Party, had been asked whether he believed in reparations for slavery....