The Jason Furman Saga: Has Obama Fired His New Economic Adviser Yet?

But the rich can afford to pay their taxes, they are rich (duh to you) and many in the middle class cannot. That is why tax cuts for the rich are a bad idea. They are not forced into poverty even though they have a job because wages do not go up and prices do (the ones that matter...housing, gas, insurance), In 1988 I get paid $ 6 an hour for a entry level manufacturing job. 20 years later it is 7 dollars an hour for the same job, unless you have a state with a high min wage. In the same geographical area apartments went from 250 a month to 700 a month, gas went from a little over a dollar a gallon to 4 and health insurance was 100% paid by the employer to $300 a month for a family. No pension, no profit sharing, and college tuition 500% higher now than then.

So if you just do not care that working families are not paid well, fine, but do not declare something you know nothing about, except through "studies" done by various Right Wing think tanks, to be a "myth". Live it first, talk about it later.

That aside, I still think Furman is a great antidote to the overly liberal Obamaites and their gleefull idea of socking it to business. Any job is better than no job.

GEORGE of OR @ Jun 13, 2008 15:55:09 PM

More tax whining

The rich get the tax breaks because they are overwhelmingly the ones paying the taxes. The top 5% pay 60% of all income taxes, even though they only earn 30% of all income. The top 40% pay 98% of all income taxes. Since the bottom half pays almost no income taxes (or actually get money back through the EITC), then it should be blindingly obvious that it would be extremely hard to give them substantial "tax breaks".

http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/88xx/doc8885/12-11-HistoricalTaxRates.pdf

As an analogy, you might as well complain that lowered college tuition ("tuition breaks") don't help the least educated who aren't going to college; well duh, it's hard to get a tuition break when you don't pay tuition in the first place.

LZ of MA @ Jun 13, 2008 11:14:36 AM

Baffle us With Bullwhip

Mr. Furman is in favor of Wal-mart, and thinks Wal-mart is a success story of progressive economics. That's the MBA thinking since "Confessions of an Economic Hit man" (John Perkins), which practice was transfered to all the MBA programs of our universities.

Unfortunately for Obama or McCain, there are NO economists that can do the job, or dare do it. The proof is in the results; the poor get poorer and the rich get tax breaks.

Larry T.

After some 30 years of study of economics, trying to understand how these experts manage to get us in the soup every decade or so, it has become more and more clear that they either don't know or don't dare change anything. I also strongly leaning with what Larry T stated... centuries of baffling the public with bullshit.

MBA of NY

Has already been sold the has bought the bill of goods. How do I know? It's clear that his mind set is already fixed at "I'm an MBA, and Know, and I'm right" and to counter Larry's discussion, he simply says,

"If you really believe that nonsense I feel sorry for you. Maybe you just can't see that when a politician goes to Michigan and plays to the liberal victimization ideology..." Dismissing others is a very typical way of arguing if favor of MBA bible.

Poor Accounting Student of Michigan:

I understand your confusion. I used to teach accounting and the hardest task was to get my students past the credit and debits. There is a logic, but I have not found a single text book on the subject... So I had to do the research myself, until I discovered a way to teach the concept to anyone, easily.

BoldHawk of NV @ Jun 13, 2008 10:05:13 AM

Democrats and Big Banks

It would seem that the dem's can't get enough of big bank money......I was a supporter of the Obama's until I read this article....this egg-head will find another horse in this race.

Hank Jestor of AR @ Jun 13, 2008 06:32:40 AM

Jason Furman

Furman clearly supports benefit cuts and Social Security privatization. See the transcript below where he calls that approach a "good plan." Also, does anyone find it bizarre that he said presidential candidate Fred Thompson "deserved credit" for his plan to gut Social Security?

KUDLOW: Jason, what's wrong--what's wrong with--what's wrong with personal savings accounts, IRAs, plus a higher retirement age? That would save a lot of money.

FURMAN: IRAs, in fact, you know, Larry, the last I checked, I think we have IRAs today. And I'm in favor of them. I think we can keep them.

KUDLOW: Diverting Social Security surpluses to IRAs?

FURMAN: You know, some of this accounts debate is a little bit misplaced. We had a great discussion at the American Enterprise Institute last week of a bipartisan plan. This plan had accounts in it. It's a good plan because the plan recognized that we needed to bring more revenue into Social Security to maintain the type of replacement rates and retirements that people are expecting. It brought benefits down but it brought new money in and it brought that money in through accounts. Thought it was a good start on the plan. CNBC, 6/27/06

Philip Berman of VA @ Jun 12, 2008 14:00:37 PM

Accounting 101

Regarding Larry T of MD's comment "The second thing is to realize that the fundamental principles of accounting are also a fraud. They rely on never placing people (including their knowledge and skills) into the "asset" column, only the "debit" column. "

FYI, a Debit is just another word for "plus" or "minus" (depending on which side of the accounting equation you're on). It is an INCREASE to Assets on the left side of the accounting equation, which, in case you need a refresher is Assets = Liabilities + Shareholder's Equity. Furthermore, a Debit decreases Liabilities and Shareholder's Equity. It does, however, increase Expenses and reduce revenues.

accounting student of MI @ Jun 12, 2008 12:50:30 PM

Larry-T

Larry - you think that U.S. corporate accounting practices should somehow capture worforce experience on the balance sheet and that GM is going down the toilet not because of the UAW but because the former CEO never worked on an assembly line? Wow. If you really believe that nonsense I feel sorry for you. Maybe you just can't see that when a politician goes to Michigan and plays to the liberal victimization ideology they are just tying to get elected. Not so complex...

MBA of NY @ Jun 12, 2008 12:37:51 PM

Brookings and Obama

Both Obama and the Brookings Institute understand one major fact: The emphasis placed on "simple answers to complex problems" which reduces all solutions to bumperstickers, is a failed philosophy. The complex issues of trade and economics need multi-faceted approaches. The first thing to recognize is that the so-called "science of economics" is a fraud. It's based on the wholesale acquisition of physics formulas from the 19th century as a way to make economics appear to be scientific. Even though the formulas in question have been discredited, the economists use them still (see "The economist has no clothes," Scientific American, April, 2008. Online at http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=the-economist-has-no-clothes).

The second thing is to realize that the fundamental principles of accounting are also a fraud. They rely on never placing people (including their knowledge and skills) into the "asset" column, only the "debit" column. So terminating an experienced, productive worker who has insights that lead to a higher quality product in favor of an untrained kid who will work for 1/4 of the ammount is a fiscally sound practice according to all principles of accounting.

If you combine those two items, you then realize that the MBA degree is essentially also a fraud.

GM was a mighty company when it was run by people with roots in the automotive industry. Whey they put MBA Roger Smith in charge, it went down the tubes. Almost every high-profile business failure in the past 50+ years has been of a corporation lead or heavily influenced by MBAs from the top business schools in America. There is at least one of the root causes of our failing economy.

Food for thought.

Larry-T of MD @ Jun 12, 2008 11:14:54 AM