Krueger Chosen as Chair of Council of Economic Advisors

[dcarrigg]

I'm underwhelmed with the US President's recent choice of Will Krueger for Chair of the Council of Economic Advisers. Reasons?

1. He compared long-term unemployed men to Kramer from Seinfeld in a New York Times column. Kramer, of course, was independently wealthy. How many of the long term unemployed enjoy the same advantage in life?
   
   
2. He penned the article: "There Are Fewer Jobs for Teenagers, but That Might Not Hurt Long-Term."
   
   
3. He argued to raise college tuition at state-run universities for in-state students to a "closer-to-market valuation."
   
   
4. Wrote that workers are relatively satisfied with their jobs despite falling wages and benefits.

Even if his arguments have some merit, this is not the person to choose as the chief economist during one of the highest periods of world unemployment in recent history.

My guess is that there will be no jobs program short of trade deals with South Korea (The US already imports Hyundais) and Columbia (The US already imports coffee and oil from there) - it's not like anyone's opening virgin markets to trade here. Any announced jobs plan will little more than a PR stunt.

The real way to lower the stated unemployment rate is to wait until January, when lots of workers begin to get kicked off of the unemployment rolls, (likely re-classifying them as discouraged workers in the U3 survey) then claim the rate-drop as your own. This is the administration's strategy, I think. It's risky (some will pen arguments against them taking credit for it), but they can respond with all of the glorious news reports saying "unemployment at 2 year low," or something like that.

One thing's for sure, Krueger, in his writings, has shown either a disdain for the Plebs (middle and lower classes), or a complete lack of conception of what living check-to-check is like. Nothing convinces me he will not continue to act accordingly. There will be no bold experimentation. Only stat-juking.

[lektrode]

Re: Krueger Chosen as Chair of Council of Economic Advisors

I'm underwhelmed with the US President's recent choice of Will Krueger for Chair of the Council of Economic Advisers. Reasons?
..........
One thing's for sure, Krueger, in his writings, has shown disdain for the Plebs (middle and lower classes). Nothing convinces me he will not continue to do so.

again, just more drivel from academia (with apologies to academia), who the messiah seems to believe hold the keys to all knowledge - they may not know how to run a biz, earn a profit, make payroll, thread the needle of the buracracy, capitalize on innovation, create jobs, or even come in out of the rain....

but at least he can say he surrounds himself with those more learned than himself....

[Chomsky]

Re: Krueger Chosen as Chair of Council of Economic Advisors

..

ecri's achuthan: 'it’s too late for obama to create jobs'

peter gorenstein, yahoo! Finance | aug. 29, 2011, 1:59 pm

president obama has nominated princeton university professor alan krueger as the new chairman of the white house council of economic advisers. The hope is krueger, who previously served in the obama administration as a treasury official, can help with the president's forthcoming jobs plan, scheduled to be unveiled in a speech on september 8.

Krueger is a labor economist, but "it's too late" for the government to spur job growth, economic cycle research institute co-founder lakshman achuthan tells the daily ticker's aaron task in the accompanying video. "there's nothing they're going to be able to do about that near-term direction in the unemployment rate, especially if we slip into a recession because every time you have a recession by definition the unemployment rate will be spiking."

Nearly four years after our last recession began unemployment is currently 9.2% and job growth remains slow at best.

As we noted in an earlier clip ECRI isn't ready to make a new recession call but Achuthan says the time to act was in the spring when the economic indicators started to weaken. "We were above 200,000 [monthly payrolls] and we're not going back there anytime soon," he says. "We're going to continue to weaken at least through the end of this year," which is (more) grim news for the millions of Americans in need of work.

http://www.businessinsider.com/its-t...#ixzz1wsm8glvb

[Thailandnotes]

Re: Krueger Chosen as Chair of Council of Economic Advisors

The real way to lower the stated unemployment rate is to wait until January, when lots of workers begin to get kicked off of the unemployment rolls, (likely re-classifying them as discouraged workers in the U3 survey) then claim the rate-drop as your own. This is the administration's strategy, I think. It's risky (some will pen arguments against them taking credit for it), but they can respond with all of the glorious news reports saying "unemployment at 2 year low," or something like that.

One thing's for sure, Krueger, in his writings, has shown either a disdain for the Plebs (middle and lower classes), or a complete lack of conception of what living check-to-check is like. Nothing convinces me he will not continue to act accordingly. There will be no bold experimentation. Only stat-juking.

Too bad we can't make the switch to the employment rate as in "Atlantic Monthly is reporting that 58.2 percent of American adults are employed."

[charliebrown]

Re: Krueger Chosen as Chair of Council of Economic Advisors

Actually this might help because their might be less ambiguity in counting those with jobs vs. counting those without.
The without number is highly skewed by saying that person X does not have a job because he doesn't one. (discouraged etc).
However I do believe that even the % employed number is doctored with, by subtracting from the total work force those who are institutionalized, which I believe counts people like students, prisoners, convalescents etc. Never mind the reason why J6P is in school is that he doesn't have a job. College graduate Y is going to graduate school because there are no jobs, and by extending his schooling meand delaying his loan payments.

Is there any pure number out there? What about the total number employed? Is that number massaged too?

[dcarrigg]

Re: Krueger Chosen as Chair of Council of Economic Advisors

Actually this might help because their might be less ambiguity in counting those with jobs vs. counting those without.
The without number is highly skewed by saying that person X does not have a job because he doesn't one. (discouraged etc).
However I do believe that even the % employed number is doctored with, by subtracting from the total work force those who are institutionalized, which I believe counts people like students, prisoners, convalescents etc. Never mind the reason why J6P is in school is that he doesn't have a job. College graduate Y is going to graduate school because there are no jobs, and by extending his schooling meand delaying his loan payments.

Is there any pure number out there? What about the total number employed? Is that number massaged too?

The US labor participation rate does not look too massaged to me:

[Chris Coles]

Re: Krueger Chosen as Chair of Council of Economic Advisors

The Times, London, Saturday, created the story
QE3 or not QE3? Bernanke keeps the world guessing

http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/busine...cle3146632.ece

And was kind enough to give my comment prime time as the only accepted: As there is a paywall, (But for once they should not mind my spreading the word), I copy my comment here:

You cannot survive in any private sector business on "hope", instead, you must have a well thought out plan; the equity capital available to back up that plan; and then the prosperity, outside of your present business model; to enable any potential customer of the new business to be able to afford to pay for the product you will place on sale.

So, where is the prosperity? It simply is not where it must be to enable the creation of the businesses and the private employment; “investment”. Almost all the prosperity of the Western economies has been very carefully drained into the financial services industries; what we outside call the Finance, Insurance and Real Estate, (FIRE), economy.

Ben Bernanke, as also Mervyn King here in the UK have both asked the same question; calling for action at the political level because the solution is outside of their respective remit.

What they both know they MUST now do, is set into motion the rapid replacement of the missing prosperity right back into the grass roots of their nations. They have both tried QE, and both discovered that trickle down does not work. Further talk about a failed policy serves no one.

Like it or not, there is a solution on the table; new thinking to try, The Capital Spillway Trust; that has raised a lot of eyebrows, but, try as hard as they might, it stands the test of a long debate. They now know that they must, as soon as possible, set into motion the creation of millions of new private businesses to create many millions of new private sector jobs; perhaps as many as 6 million here in the UK and 30 million in the US; probably as many again in Europe.

They have to replace that lost prosperity; and the only viable solution is through the investment of vast sums of equity capital into millions of new free enterprise private sector business and that in turn requires a plan. They have to take about £450 billion and $2.25 Trillion out of their respective FIRE economies and convert the over leveraged bonds into something that will serve its purpose as equity capital; a vanishing bond; to enable the creation of those jobs.

May I be so bold as to ask Mr. President Obama to sit down and read chapters 2 and 3 of The Road Ahead from a Grass Roots Perspective and then The Capital Spillway Trust response to the Green Paper; Financing a private sector recovery. He can be certain that Bernanke has, as also King. But they both need the political leadership to set that plan into motion.

Try some new thinking sir. You have nothing to fear but fear itself.

http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/opinion/leaders/article3146970.ece

[yourfather]

Re: Krueger Chosen as Chair of Council of Economic Advisors

Sif its not massaged. Back in the 50s most mothers were at home looking after babies. Factor in that women are now forced into the workforce because a family finds it hard to make ends meet on one wage.

If anything the 70s is when the participation kicks in cuz women don't need to have men around and can do their own thing. Prior to that working for a chick was like being Don Drapers pa in mad men. That explains the participation rate increase.

The stats are crap and unreliable and are open to manipulation but the anecdotal evidence is the good jobs are hard to get because of pent up demand, more women work than stay at home with kids and the participation rate is artificially pumped up.

The unemployment rate is more like 20 percent.

[charliebrown]

Re: Krueger Chosen as Chair of Council of Economic Advisors

The trend looks right to my eye ball, but all employment numbers are massaged.
Here is the post I was referring to above. Participation rate = workers / (work force) work force is being massaged.
So is the population because only those non-institutionalize people are in the employment to population ratio.

A number that needs to be published is employed / population. As the number of people in this country age and retire, they will need to be cared for by the people with jobs. The number of net producers will be declining and the number of net-consumers will be increasing.

http://www.itulip.com/forums/showthread.php/19727-18-000-jobs............er-like-RA-!?highlight=institutionalized
http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.a.htm

Category	June 2010	June 2011
Employment status
Civilian noninstitutional population	237,690	239,489
Civilian labor force	153,684	153,421
Participation rate	64.7	64.1
Employed	139,092	139,334
Employment-population ratio	58.5	58.2
Unemployed	14,593	14,087
Unemployment rate	9.5	9.2
Not in labor force	84,006	86,069
Employed persons at work part time
Part time for economic reasons	8,631	8,552
Slack work or business conditions	6,172	5,806
Could only find part-time work	2,123	2,401
Part time for noneconomic reasons	17,963	18,470

[BigBagel]

Re: Krueger Chosen as Chair of Council of Economic Advisors

Wasn't Krueger George Costanza's boss on Seinfeld? He attended the Festivus celebration.

Is this the same guy?

[doom&gloom]

Re: Krueger Chosen as Chair of Council of Economic Advisors

At least George wasn't another Princeton Putz like this ash-hole...