Robert Kuttner is concerned that Obama's economic team--Geither, Summers, Orszag, Furman--are a bunch of retread proteges of Robert Rubin, Treasury Secretary for Bill Clinton and the point man in the Citigroup debacle. So am I, as I wrote yesterday. Something is not making sense to me here.
Obama is intelligent enough to reach his own conclusions, and they are likely to produce far more heartburn for conservative Republicans than for those who worked so hard to elect him. But it would be helpful if his senior economic team included even one person who was not a member of the same centrist club - a Joseph Stiglitz, a Jamie Galbraith, a Jared Bernstein or a Sheila Bair.
Have all these economists learned the lessons of the 90's, so as to avoid them in the future? I had always heard that Obama was impressed with the so-called Chicago School of Economics, famous for its laissez-faire preferences. But it is also hard to believe that he hasn't seen the downside of this economic philosophy that has become so obvious this year. I guess we shall see. As with Hillary Clinton, I'm willing to initially give Obama the benefit of the doubt.
Update: I just found this column on the change of heart by many of Obama's advisors on their 90's thinking. That's good.
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