Thursday, June 12, 2008

I like Jason Furman and “Rubinomics” more than they do...

While this New York Time's piece focuses on Union Critical of Obama’s Top Economics Aide and why some do not want to see Jason Furman switch over from the Clinton campaign to the Obama campaign, I personally think Jason Furman and Robert Rubin could bring some benefit to the Obama Campaign.

I do think the danger lies in the fact that their previous connections to other candidates and campaigns further dilutes Obama's position that he is not part of the "status quo" but the reality is union membership is not growing and a good number of Democrats are not union members. I don't disagree with Furman on issues like this:
Mr. Furman, who served for a while as a special economic adviser in the Clinton administration, has taken some controversial positions. He argued in 2005, for example, that Wal-Mart, despite its conflicts with organized labor over pay and health insurance, was a good business model.

More recently, he argued that while the typical worker suffers from inadequate income, that worker’s living standards, broadly measured, are higher today than those of their counterparts 30 years ago — an argument in dispute among economists.

Using NWO as an example, we are an area with a majority of people who consider themselves to be Democrats, go to almost any Wal-Mart store in this area, it's where people shop.

I don't disagree with him on the living standards, but the reality is people don't want to hear that. Thirty years ago many people felt cable tv was a luxury item, and if you had more than one television it was a "wow" moment; there were no cell phones, internet and even something like a microwave was something that people were just starting to purchase. Not only have some prices of products gone up but our expectation of what we "need" has also.

An interesting older article I recommend on Reaganomics vs. Rubinomics and if you are interested in delving even deeper into this topic? The Hamiliton Project is the place to go...

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