Monday, November 24, 2008

Rubinomics Recalculated - What will president-elect Obama do to help the economy?

Many people are looking forward to what Mr. Obama will do to help pump up the economy. So-called Rubinomics is an economic formula that refers to balanced budgets, free trade and financial deregulation, a combination that was credited with fueling the prosperity of the 1990s.
It is testament to former Treasury Secretary Robert E. Rubin’s star power among many Democrats that as President-elect Barack Obama fills out his economic team, a virtual Rubin constellation is taking shape. The president-elect’s choices for his top economic advisers — Timothy F. Geithner as Treasury secretary, Lawrence H. Summers as senior White House economics adviser and Peter R. Orszag as budget director — are past protégés of Mr. Rubin, who held two of those jobs under President Bill Clinton. Even the headhunters for Mr. Obama have Rubin ties: Michael Froman, Mr. Rubin’s chief of staff in the Treasury Department who followed him to Citigroup, and James P. Rubin, Mr. Rubin’s son.

However, this time, Rubinomics might change to a total different definition.
-Instead of deregulation, Mr. Obama has sworn to usher in a period of re-regulation
-Instead of balancing budgets, the Obama team will be going deeper into debt for at least two years by spending hundreds of billions of dollars more to stimulate the economy, without concern for deficits, for aid to the jobless, states and cities; tax cuts for workers; and job-creating construction of roads, schools and other public works. This weekend the team has mentioned a stimulus plan that will create or save 2.5 million jobs.
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Hopefully, these plans will actually work, and these few good news will help bring up consumer confidence.

1 comment:

Vance Brown said...

I don't think he should follow Rubinomics. Although I appreciate what the guy did for us in the 1990s different times call for different measures. And these are very different times we are in.

I suggests we look more toward an FDR administration for Obama's economic plans. I think he would love to have the cabinets of Abe Lincoln and FDR but they're all dead so he has to go with the guys in the Clinton administration. But look for an FDR domestic policy with an Abe Lincoln approach. And a Reagan, yea I said it Reagan foreign policy.