Q&A with Goolsbee

The New York Times has a section on White House economist Austan Goolsbee answering questions sent by readers.  Here’s an excerpt:

Q: From a behavioral economic point of view, thinking (very) long term, to overcome the debt-buying culture that many Americans have grown up in — what cultural-change initiatives might we create to give Americans more confidence in their individual futures, so that we don’t feel the need to resort to credit to have the nice things we want?

A: Eesh. I am no expert on cultural changes. My answers usually begin with: “change the incentives.”

Don’t forget that credit is not automatically bad; smoothing our consumption over our lifespans is one of the goals economists have for functioning credit markets.

I agree with your question, though, for people who have gotten themselves into unsustainable debts that exceed their ability to repay or where their incomes don’t keep up. And also that for some suppliers of credit, they rather clearly premised their business models on exploiting consumers’ lack of understanding of the details and fees, etc.

Read the entire Q&A HERE.

There was even a question about his name!

Timothy Geithner with Charlie Rose

Missed this last week, on the eve of the stress test result release.

Buffett on CNBC

CNBC’s Becky Quick again interviews the Oracle of Omaha.

more about “untitled“, posted with vodpod

Simon Johnson gives some sort of A

Salon features an interview by Andrew Leonard with Simon Johnson, whom they caught up with after the hearing on Capitol Hill before the Joint Economic Committee yesterday.  It was a pretty good interview. Here are some excerpts:

On breaking the belief that what’s good for Wall Street is good for everyone:

The breaking of the belief system is an outcome of the crash. The belief system is kind of a perpetuating mechanism but when the economic realities change, people stop believing the same things. I think one advantage of a society like the United States, a democracy, is that we can change our minds pretty quickly on some things, even some firmly held beliefs.

On backdoor nationalization:

We’re stumbling into bad forms of nationalization. My favorite line, which was in an Op-Ed we wrote for the Financial Times in January, was, “If you want to end up with the politics of Pakistan, the economy of Ukraine and the inflation rate of Zimbabwe, bank nationalization is the way to go.” That’s my feeling about nationalization. I want government-managed bankruptcy.

On giving marks to what has been done so far by Obama’s first 100 days:

I’d give the bailout an incomplete, which is allowed at MIT. Come back and finish it in the summer. Most of the other stuff I would give some sort of A. I know I am complaining a lot, it’s true. But I give them an A+ on the G20 given the cards that they were dealt and I think they’ve made a lot of progress on other things.

See the entire interview HERE.

Summers on Meet the Press

Larry Summers appeared on yesterday’s Meet the Press with David Gregory to yet again tackle the various issues that have been at the center of debates.  In the interview, Summers also talked about looking after credit card abuses committed by financial institutions by setting very high rates that make it unaffordable for many consumers.

He’s going to be very focused in the very near term on a whole set of issues having to do with credit card abuses, having to do with the way people have been deceived into paying extraordinarily high rates that they wouldn’t have paid if they knew they were getting themselves into.

Sick around the world

As I was on a hunt for some good watch on Netflix, I stumbled upon this documentary from PBS, released a little over a year ago. Some of you might have already seen it, but for those who haven’t, it’s a good one to watch. The correspondent, T.R. Reid, in search of possible solutions to America’s health care problem, went on a trip to five different countries and see how they are doing things their way. He visited the UK, Japan, Germany, Taiwan, and Switzerland to interview some of the experts in their respective health care system. The differences he found are staggering.

From these 5 countries, there seems to be a consistent finding. Not only do their people pay very little to nothing, the model they follow also do not completely adopt a free-market system approach. As a result, many of the hospitals and providers are earning very little, if at all. If such a model does work, at least for the sake of having universal health care, the question then becomes, will America ever abandon the free markets, even for just health care?

I couldn’t find a way to make the screen here bigger, so I’ll just provide the link. See it HERE.

A Q&A with Larry Summers

Today, Obama’s National Economic Adviser Larry Summers appears before The Economic Club for a Q&A. A big part of it was not aired due to some technical problems. The highlight of this interview is found not in the first segment, but on the second where he was asked about the deregulation that he pushed for during the Clinton administration. It comes sometime after the 10:30 mark.

Obama on CBS’ 60 Minutes

President Obama appeared yesterday on 60 Minutes to talk about AIG bonuses, the economic meltdown, as well as Geithner – no he is not leaving. And I somehow believe him.  He also discussed with Kroft Afghanistan and Iraw, and how the US’ foreign policy should go with regard to these states.

Other highlights of the interview include:

• “You certainly don’t wanna use the tax code to punish people.  Let’s see if there are ways of doing this that… uphold our basic principle of fairness but don’t hamper us from getting the banking system back on track.”
• “Sorry, buddy. You still got the job.”
• “I think that systemic risks are still out there.”
• “We’re already starting to see flickers of hope out there.”
• “Iraq was actually easier than Afghanistan.”

posted with vodpod

Former Treasury Sec. Larry Summers talks to Liesman of CNBC

“No, no, no, no. No taxes this year.”

He also weighed in on the AIG bonus issue, but what he said isn’t really new.

An interview with Nassim Taleb

The Washington Post yesterday published an interview with Nassim Nicholas Taleb, author of the higly regarded book The Black Swan.  In the interview, he called that people in Obama’s administration working on the financial crisis be replaced with those who were better able to predict what was coming, such as Harvard economist Ken Rogoff. He said,

That’s why I think Obama needs to start with a new economic team — Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner and Lawrence Summers were among those who didn’t see this coming in the first place. He needs new people who understand complex systems.

He also recommended some solutions to the current crisis (including an input on bonuses) as well as briefly talked about the infamous Black Swan. Thankfully, he said the crisis isn’t going to last for 17 years, like the struggle Lebanon faced in the past.

See the whole interview HERE (you need to be registered in order to view the page).