One of my professors at Chicago, who I now know (I didn't at the time) is a Republican, advised us to vote the economic advisor, not the president. In 2000, that vote would have been for the brilliant Larry Summers (Gore) rather than the lackluster Larry Lindsay (Bush). This time around, I am tempted to follow his advice and vote for one of his colleagues, Austan Goolsbee. One of my favorite professors in business school, Goolsbee is now the economic adviser to Barack Obama. He is brilliant, pragmatic, and so compelling that even George Will likes the guy enough to write an entire column about him. My only fear is that he is too interesting to make a good political appointee.
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Go, Goolsbee
04 Oct 2007 09:48 am
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Comments (18)
Hey, Austan is good-looking as well! Well, at least his picture on Greg Mankiw's blog makes him look good.
"My only fear is that he is too interesting to make a good political appointee."
I don't think you need to worry about that. If Barack Obama is elected president, everyone else becomes less interesting.
Greg Mankiw's comments on being an economic advisor, however, make me question your professor's advice.
Presidents and candidates have to make decisions on a multitude of issues. It is unreasonable to expect any adviser to agree on every single issue. Indeed, politicians listen to many advisers with different points of view. An adviser cannot resign in protest every time a decision fails to go the way he advised. The system could not function if people acted in such a self-centered way.
I might vote on a candidate's promises or platform, but not just on the biography of a single advisor.
I second all of that Megan and also what George Will had to say! "..he seems to be the sort of person -- amiable, empirical and reasonable -- you would want at the elbow of a Democratic president, if such there must be." Who is George Will voting for?
Is Larry Summers really so brilliant? I thought his reputation as an economist was as a really bright, talented guy who nevertheless failed to publish anything particularly groundbreaking or important.
Freddie,
You probably should do some homework before you resume commenting on economics and economists again.
That actually came from a book about Summers and his first year at Harvard. However, that's immaterial. I'll refer you to the first sentence in my comment. It's commonly referred to as a "question". A question is a statement used to derive knowledge. It is a kind of informal plea for help, whereby one party asks for another to share information with him. You can generally assume that when a person asks one of these "questions", they are not asserting expertise, especially when they immediately qualify it by remarking that they, in fact, have no expertise. Hope that clears things up for you.
lance,
I think Summers most famous publication is the World Bank Pollution Memo.
You may now resume again.
Freddie, that is a cool symbol at the end of your first sentence. I wish I knew its significance and how to make one with my keyboard.
I wonder if you are an expert in the work of modern economists and their work. Please clarify.
Economics is the only academic discipline that in recent decades has moved in the direction that America and much of the world has moved, to the right. Goolsbee no doubt has lots of dubious ideas -- he is, after all, a Democrat -- about how government can creatively fiddle with the market's allocation of wealth and opportunity. But he seems to be the sort of person -- amiable, empirical and reasonable -- you would want at the elbow of a Democratic president, if such there must be.
That says it all right there. He's picking this guy because he'll be the least evil Democrat, in George Will's wretched mind. Way to go George!!
I wonder if you are an expert in the work of modern economists and their work.
I wonder if that sentence could have used one of those "cool symbols"?
Maybe to use those symbols one must be aquainted with the work of modern grammarians and their work?
The professor's advise is silly. Does he suggest that a person like a George Bush or a Rudy Guiliani should get one's vote if he had chosen Goolsbee as an economics adviser. What can the most brilliant economic adviser do to stop a lunatic intent on invading Iraq and Iran?
Better advise after this last regime may be to look at the vice presidential choice.
No, even better is to look at the person running for the top office and ask yourself "does the person have more interests in life than just being president?" and "what has the person done to show that?" If we had done that we would have avoided our present incumbent who doesn't read books and never had any interest in traveling overseas (I assume because foreigners live there).
Anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job. - Hitchikers Guide to the Galaxy.
Zaphod Beeblebrox also said that the Presidents real job is to distract the public from where the decisions are really being made.
Paying more attention to the real power sources in a potential administration might not be a bad idea.
He's picking this guy because he'll be the least evil Democrat
Isn't voting for the least evil candidate a reasonable approach?
Obama has many good people surrounding him. He got my vote after he picked Samantha Power.
Senator Obama's policy to get rid of nuclear weapons to set a good example didn't concern you? The Origin of War has the hypothesis that war, or group initiated violence, didn't start until an attacker could have a decided advantage which arrived with the invention of the bow and arrow. You can't have as your only policy retreat from potential aggression.
Michael, he's not advocating unilateral disarmament, so don't worry.
Phoebe, why don't we try Elliot Ness approaching Al Capone and telling him the FBI will give up its guns if the mob will as musical theater first. You know more aout the Senator's speeches. Do you think they might provide good source material?
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Is Larry Summers really so brilliant? I thought his reputation as an economist was as a really bright, talented guy who nevertheless failed to publish anything particularly groundbreaking or important. Then again, that's just uninformed hearsay.
Posted by Freddie | October 4, 2007 10:08 AM