Obama Announces New ‘Economic Recovery Advisory Board’
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Related subjects: Denver Lessing, Economic Recovery, Energy Supply, Mortgage & Credit Crisis, U.S. Politics Comments Off
President-elect Barack Obama, in his third press conference in as many days, has announced a new entity, the independent Economic Recovery Advisory Board (ERAB), to be headed by former Fed chairman Paul Volcker. ERAB will include individuals from government, private business, organized labor and academia, pooling the knowledge and analysis of individuals with a wealth of experience and who are not bound by being employees of the president, in order to get the best advice for weathering the storm.
We are seeing what may be one of the most unusual transition periods in presidential history. The president-elect is working at breakneck pace to organize a team of economic all-stars, who can help craft the most collaborative, viable and responsible policies for reorganizing key economic and fiscal policy in order to shorten the recession and avoid deflation or depression.
At this time of severe economic uncertainty, a troubling raft of near bank failures and a lame duck president who is widely blamed for negligence in financial regulation, the president-elect is using his own bully pulpit to spread confidence that the right choices will be made to soften the impact of a spiraling recession and speed economic recovery. Volcker is a man of long experience, but his naming also mirrors Obama’s philosophy of working across party lines, as Volcker took the Fed helm under Carter, but served most of his tenure under Reagan.
Obama also named Austan Goolsbee, one of his top economic advisors, “to serve as Staff Director and Chief Economist of the Economic Recovery Advisory Board and act as the primary liaison between the Board and the Administration.” He also said he planned to name Goolsbee to his three-member Council of Economic Advisers.
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Obama said his Economic Recovery Advisory Board would be modeled on the Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board formed by Pres. Eisenhower to help cut through the “groupthink” that could take over in closed intelligence and advisory environments. Obama has been decisive in his assertions that his will be an administration informed by all relevant points of view, not by an ideological predisposition, and he appears to be organizing his administration to gather that information, whether or not the traditional avenues would provide it.
He reminded the press that his vision is that “Our future is bright, if we make good decisions, and what we don’t want to do is get caught up in a spiral where people pull back from the economy” that will lead to deflation and mounting job losses. He added that “What we want to do is to be sober, be clear”, suggesting he wants to make all necessary adjustments, some a matter of fine-tuning, some a matter of grand vision and/or tough budget triage, to ensure future economic prosperity.
Obama praised American workers and innovation as the world’s best, but acknowledged the climate of concern, saying “People should understand that help is on the way.” Asked about what that meant, he said it was too soon to announce the full array of specifics, but that a priority would be to “start putting a down-payment on a new energy economy”.
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