Brad DeLong cited this passage from Ron Suskind’s latest book on Monday: Both [Christina Romer and Larry Summers], in fact, were concerned by something the president had said in a morning briefing: that he thought that high unemployment was due to productivity gains in the economy. The same meme spread across the economics spectrum: Scott […]

Elaine Kamarck wrote an article in The Washington Monthly’s blog “Ten Miles Square” entitled “NO Time to Go Wobbly on Welfare Reform” Briefly for those who have not clicked the link, the article stresses that TANF (aka welfare) is a very small component of the social welfare safety net (as was AFDC before welfare reform). […]

From my email (with formatting lost): Ask the Experts: What’s Next for the Economy? It’s a big week for the American economy. President Obama announced his plans to reduce the deficit on Monday, and Wednesday afternoon the Federal Reserve announces its new plan to boost growth. Do these proposals make sense? And what do they […]

Lifted from comments on the housing situation by Spencer…Housing vs. Household formation. Of course the point also being…what is going to be the source of growth for US citizens? kharris comments and adds another contributing factor on the housing market: …Banks already have pretty nearly all the housing assets they care to have, thank you […]

This post is late in the game but might be handy. Certainly a lot has been said so far. American Jobs Act 2011 link and transcript of speech by the President.

Van Jones of Rebuild the Dream introduces the two presenters by noting that we are in the “post-Whale oil” strategy for liquid fuels; using algae and biomass technologies. Jonathan Wolfson, CEO of Solazyme, Inc. opens by thanking his investors and then stating,  “We make oil.”  He declares that oil is not going away, and is […]

This post was provoked by a moment of frustrated pique, another in a series of ‘shakes cane at clouds’ moments as this classic New Deal Liberal is driven to craziness by otherwise sensible social liberals who still fetishize markets. And yes I am pointing fingers right at Erza K, Matt Y and Kevin D. But […]

President Clinton introduces the panelists, noting that there is a UN discussion of Libya scheduled for 10:00 a.m. and that they will have to leave quickly.  First up is Mexican President Felipe Calderón Hinojosa, about whom President Clinton is enthusiastic. Calderon is less vibrant, but presents an impressive array of detail on Mexico’s unilateral reduction […]

[updates and edits, especially in the 4th-6th grafs] “The winner” in Haitian development created 12,000 jobs in the garment industry in the past eight years in Haiti.  Seems as if all of the participants today will be garment manufacturers, though WJC notes that companies such as Coca-Cola and Newmont Mining are also considering investment. When […]

As with last year and the year before, I will be (as much as possible) at the Clinton Global Initiative, now with even more Social Media and Networking Goodness. If you’re here, say hello. If you’re not, look for posts and peruse the offerings for the conference. If there’s something you’re especially interested in, email […]