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Barack Obama on Monday launched what he promised would be an enduring bipartisan process to bring down the fiscal deficits that have started to explode under his watch. Mr Obama, who called 130 lawmakers and members of think-tanks to the White House for what he described as a “fiscal sustainability summit”, added that by the end of his first term, he would halve the budget deficit he inherited from George W. Bush. He also promised to deliver a more transparent budget that would factor in the costs of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, natural disasters and the likelihood that...

Imagine for a moment John McCain was President, and few of the people on the task force he created to repair the crumbling auto industry owned American cars. Would that be a public relations nightmare? Well, an article published Monday by the Detroit News revealed that most of Barack Obama's newly announced Presidential Task Force on the Auto Industry don't patronize the companies they've been appointed to rescue: The vehicles owned by the Obama administration's auto team could reflect one reason why Detroit's Big Three automakers are in trouble: The list includes few new American cars. Among the eight members...

Unions spur unemployment, and "there is no question" about it. "High union wages that exceed the competitive market rate are likely to cause job losses in the unionized sector of the economy." That is the unvarnished conclusion of one of the country's most admired economists. From 1970 to 1985, a state with average unionization had a rate of unemployment 1.2 percentage points higher than a state with no unions. This represented "about 60 percent of the increase in normal unemployment" in that period. Okay, a finding from several decades ago may be a bit dated. But the phenomenon of how...

Note: The following text is a quote: http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/Geithner-Summers-Convene-Official-Designees-to-Presidential-Task-Force-on-the-Auto-Industry/ THE BRIEFING ROOM Friday, February 20th, 2009 at 5:09 pm Geithner, Summers Convene Official Designees to Presidential Task Force on the Auto Industry THE WHITE HOUSE Office of the Press Secretary ____________________________________________________________ For Immediate Release February 20, 2009 Geithner, Summers Convene Official Designees to Presidential Task Force on the Auto Industry WASHINGTON – Today, Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner and National Economic Council (NEC) Director Larry Summers convened official designees to the Presidential Task Force on the Auto Industry to discuss recently submitted restructuring plans from Chrysler LLC and General Motors Corporation. The...

Obama to appoint panel for auto recovery By STEVEN R. HURST, Associated Press Writer Steven R. Hurst, Associated Press Writer 2 hrs 52 mins ago WASHINGTON – It will take more than one "car czar" to help get the embattled U.S. auto industry back on track, President Barack Obama has decided. Instead, his administration is establishing a presidential task force to direct the restructuring of General Motors Corp. and Chrysler LLC, a senior administration official said Sunday night. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and National Economic Council Director Lawrence Summers will oversee the across-the-government panel, the official said, speaking on the...

The administration of US President Barack Obama will create an inter-agency task force on restructuring the troubled auto industry instead of naming a "car czar" as was planned by the Bush administration, The Wall Street Journal reported late Sunday. Citing unnamed senior administration officials, the newspaper said Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and White House economic adviser Lawrence Summers will jointly oversee the task force

Treasury postponing new financial rescue plan announcement to TuesdayWASHINGTON (MarketWatch) -- A key Obama administration official said Sunday that new, soon-to-be-announced financial measures by the Treasury will include creating incentives for the private sector to invest in troubled banks. "It can't all be private capital, but with the right kinds of government guarantees and the right kinds of financing, strategic approaches, [Treasury Secretary Timothy] Geithner believes we can bring in substantial private capital," said Obama's chief economic advisor Lawrence Summers on Fox News Sunday. One measure the Treasury is considering would create a "bad bank" or "aggregator bank" that would...

One of President Barack Obama's top economic advisers forecast Sunday a difficult struggle with Congress over Senate cuts of $40 billion for state and local governments from the administration's massive spending and tax cut package to stimulate the failing economy. The $827 billion Senate version of the plan — designed to bring the economy out of the worst downward spiral since the Great Depression — was expected to pass the Senate on Tuesday. The House had already passed its $819 billion version of the measure.

Democrats on television this weekend acted quickly on the heels of Obama's inauguration to temper hopes that a change in administration necessarily means a swift economic recovery. "There's been no good news," said Vice President Joe Biden on CBS' "Face the Nation," "and there's no good news on the immediate horizon." Lawrence Summers, head of the president's National Economic Council, told NBC's "Meet the Press" that Americans will need to be patient.

WASHINGTON – One of President Barack Obama's top economic advisers says the nation can afford to spend hundreds of billions of dollars in an attempt to jump-start a weak economy. But Larry Summers warns that fiscal discipline will be necessary once the economy recovers. He says the government must spend money now to revive an economy that shed more than 2 million jobs last year.

Obama will focus on helping consumers, local governments and businesses to deploy the rest of the $700B TARP fund, said Lawrence Summers, Obama's top economic adviser. "The focus is going to be on the need for credit," Summers told CBS' "Face the Nation."....... to address "housing to prevent foreclosures," "automobile loans, consumer credits, small business, municipalities".... banks will get more oversight in their use of TARP funds.....Summers said results of TARP so far have been "unsatisfactory."

President-elect Barack Obama will push bankers to resume lending to businesses and consumers to help put the ailing economy back on track, but things will get worse before they get better, his top aides said Sunday. "I think he is going to have a strong message for the bankers," said David Axelrod, a top Obama adviser. "We want to see credit flowing again. We don't want them to sit on any money that they get from taxpayers." Obama, a Democrat who is to be sworn in at noon Tuesday as the 44th U.S. president, inherits a $1 trillion-plus deficit and...

Larry Summers, the incoming director of the National Economic Council, predicted Sunday that President-elect Obama would keep the unemployment rate below 10 percent. “I think while we’re going to see substantial job losses, frankly what’s important about the president’s program here is that it is going to contain what would otherwise be just a vicious cycle,” Summers said on CBS’s “Face the Nation”. “People spend less, therefore, others earn less, therefore, they spend less.” Summers said that Obama has received a “terrific response” from Congress on his plan for a massive stimulus to pump money into the economy mainly by...

The Talk Shows Sunday, January 18th, 2009 Guests to be interviewed today on major television talk shows: FOX NEWS SUNDAY (Fox Network): House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif.; Robert Gibbs, Obama's choice for press secretary.MEET THE PRESS (NBC): Rahm Emanuel, Obama's choice for chief of staff.FACE THE NATION (CBS): Lawrence Summers, Obama's choice for director of the National Economic Council.THIS WEEK (ABC): David Axelrod, senior adviser to President-elect Barack Obama.LATE EDITION (CNN) : President-elect Barack Obama; Axelrod; Dana Perino, press secretary to President George W. Bush; Bush White House counselor Ed Gillespie.

On the heals of the mortgage and investment banking collapse, the latest $50 billion fraud allegedly perpetrated by Wall Street mogul Bernard Madoff adds to the growing concern about whether incoming President Barack Obama will support effective regulation of the financial industry. Look at the nominees to see why I'm concerned. Obama last week tapped Mary Schapiro to lead the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. A former SEC commissioner, she now heads the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, which oversees all U.S. brokerages selling securities. Because her agency should have caught Madoff, charges that she was asleep at the wheel raises...

Summers apparently does not see, or if he does see, does not care, that in presenting his proposal for redistribution, what he is urging is armed robbery on a massive scale. That is the essence of any policy of “redistribution,” whether advocated by Summers and Obama or by Lenin, Stalin, or Mao. http://www.georgereisman.com/blog/

... [Larry Summers] is also the centrist who has made it safe for other centrist Democrats to move to the left. Both times I’ve interviewed Mr. Obama this year, he has brought up Mr. Summers, unbidden, and pointed out that Summers was now writing a lot more about the plight of the middle class than about budget deficits. [] Obama [has] called him “a thought leader.” Below is an issue-by-issue guide to Mr. Summers. ... INEQUALITY: Mr. Summers has spent much of his career tweaking fellow liberals with arguments he considers unpleasant truths []. But he seems to have decided...

The Summers Saga by: Deborah Lambert, December 11, 2008 Now that former Clinton-era Treasury Secretary Larry Summers is part of President Obama’s inner circle, you’d think that bygones would be bygones. But Dr. Summers’ mea culpas, issued after his blasphemous comment about women and math while serving as president of Harvard, have not persuaded feminists that he is worthy of redemption, noted Anthony Paletta in a recent posting on mindingthecampus.com. After being disinvited from a speaking engagement at the University of California, he was referred to as a “speaker who has come to symbolize gender and racial prejudice in academia.”...

WASHINGTON -- There is a condign symmetry about this financial crisis. A government-induced crisis is getting a government-insured resolution. The excesses of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae are being mopped up by huge federal spending, made all the more massive by all the reckless endeavors of the politicians, the regulators and the financiers who frivoled with the intemperance of Freddie and Fannie. Now President-elect Barack Obama has perhaps faced up to the mess. He has not shied away from bringing former Secretary of the Treasury Larry Summers onto his economic team as head of his National Economic Council. Summers was...

NEW YORK – President-elect Barack Obama will announce the leaders of his economic team Monday, naming Timothy Geithner as treasury secretary and Lawrence Summers to direct the National Economic Council, transition officials said.