Mike Allen and Jonathan Weisman report for the Washington Post:
Posted by DeLong at November 30, 2004 12:53 PM | TrackBackwashingtonpost.com: Gutierrez Is Pick for Commerce Secretary: Officials familiar with the search process said that, Gutierrez notwithstanding, the White House has found it harder to attract a top-flight team because some candidates are unwilling to give up lucrative posts to come to Washington to be White House cheerleaders.
One economist, who was rumored to be up for a position on the Council of Economic Advisers, said he could not take a job that has been steadily pushed to the sidelines over the past two years. "You can't be attracted to a job where you'd be out of the loop," he said.
A top White House official disputed that, saying: "The idea we can't recruit people to serve because they don't want to be cheerleaders is absolutely wrong."
Massachusetts Institute of Technology economist James Poterba, the top choice to replace N. Gregory Mankiw as chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, has declined the post, sources inside and outside the White House said. Poterba told White House officials he did not want to move to Washington and disrupt his teenage children's lives.
Stanford University's John Cogan, a top economist for President George H.W. Bush, has declined invitations to join the administration as a point man for Social Security reform, White House officials say.
White House officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said both cases involved personal circumstances and were not a reflection of the desirability of White House employment. The officials asserted that the new team at the National Economic Council and the Council of Economic Advisers will be involved in crafting policies that will make up the core of Bush's plans to overhaul Social Security and the tax code.
But some Republican economists say the administration's top economic jobs have been marginalized, while their inhabitants have been publicly humiliated.
"Why would you want to take a job where you have no influence?" asked Bruce Bartlett of the conservative National Center for Policy Analysis. "What's the point?"
Stephen Friedman, who had said last week that he planned to step down as Bush's chief economic adviser, submitted a letter of resignation yesterday saying he planned to return to the private sector.
The dismissals of Treasury Secretary Paul H. O'Neill and chief economic adviser Lawrence B. Lindsey two years ago signaled that Bush would accept no dissent or friction in his administration, Bartlett said.
Treasury Secretary John W. Snow is seen as more of a promoter of White House policymaking than a policymaker, and Snow faces anonymous quotes predicting his departure. "It doesn't look like the White House treats its economic advisers very well, regardless of competence or loyalty," Bartlett said.
Among those mentioned as a possible Snow successor is New York Gov. George E. Pataki, who said in Utica, N.Y., yesterday that he is not interested. When asked why his name keeps popping up for one Bush administration job or another, Pataki replied, "God only knows."
Because he has no future, except in shadowy fundraising, and only he seems not to know it?
Let's see. The person who could best make a Social Security reform case (Lindsey) was summarily executed.
The metals-industry man was not only executed, he was replaced by a railroad executive--and not a very good railroad executive at that. And the railroad man has been told not to let the door hit his arse on the way out, and been replaced by a man who sells addictive processed-sugar products to children and wonders why there is an obesity "epidemic."
Mankiw's 2003 projection looks as if it was written by James Glassman; he can probably hear the snickering on Morningside Heights from his office. Poterba is too busy guest-lecturing at Berkeley (we want a report, by the way) to be able to travel the Bos-Wash corridor.
No one who is capable of handling it properly wants the job. So it will have to go to some who wants it, but is not capable of handling it.
Which means it's Cokehead's for the asking.
Posted by: Ken Houghton at November 30, 2004 02:20 PMRosenberg has an interesting piece on SS reform at Salon (get a day pass). Also has a link to an interesting article on conservative (bonds) vs aggressive (ie, equity rich) investments by pension fund managers.
http://blogs.salon.com/0000014/
Posted by: jml at November 30, 2004 06:27 PMBrad, thanks for elevating this one from the comments!
Posted by: RT at November 30, 2004 06:35 PMRosenberg has an interesting piece on SS reform at Salon (get a day pass). Also has a link to an interesting article on conservative (bonds) vs aggressive (ie, equity rich) investments by pension fund managers.
http://blogs.salon.com/0000014/
Posted by: jml at November 30, 2004 06:40 PMWow, Poterba resigned to spend more time with his family even before he started!
You're right that expert
will want to work for people who won't listen to expert advice, but I wonder if some of the difficulty is not more substantive. Whoever works on economic policy for the White House is going to be damned if they do the right thing (ie raise taxes, cut spending, face mild recession) and damned if they don't (they're on watch when the economy went down the gurgler). Unfortunately the latter's more likely, but either way it's not going to be an easy life for Dubya's people.
Wow, Poterba resigned to spend more time with his family even before he started!
You're right that expert
will want to work for people who won't listen to expert advice, but I wonder if some of the difficulty is not more substantive. Whoever works on economic policy for the White House is going to be damned if they do the right thing (ie raise taxes, cut spending, face mild recession) and damned if they don't (they're on watch when the economy went down the gurgler). Unfortunately the latter's more likely, but either way it's not going to be an easy life for Dubya's people.
WTF?
These people VOTED for Bush and now say they don't want to serve in his administration cause they might lose credibility?
To bad they cannot be forcibly drafted to serve. It'd serve em' right.
Posted by: ken at November 30, 2004 07:46 PMThis just in from the wires:
<<In a surprise announcement, President George W. Bush today nominated Berkeley economist J. Bradford DeLong to be his new Secretary of the Treasury. In prepared remarks, the President complimented Professor DeLong on his intelligence, his integrity and his devotion to family.
In the brief question-and-answer session that followed, reporters peppered the President with insolent and childish inquiries, harping on Dr. DeLong’s being not only a Democrat from a Blue State but one who calls the economic policy making of the Bush Administration "a clown show” and the war in Iraq "a disaster" (Professor DeLong has indeed reportedly gone so far as to call on more than one occasion for the President’s impeachment – Ed.).
Out of pity, the President explained the obvious to the White press corps:
“You have to have dissent if you want to crush dissent. If I filled the cabinet with yes men or folks with neutral positions, I wouldn’t have the fun of crushing the life and spirit out them…and when I say “I” I mean me and the Vice President, of course.”
DeLong, who refused to appear alongside the President at the press conference announcing his appointment, issued a cryptic message to readers of his Internet-based thought crime experiment or “weblog”:
“Help, the Secret Service has already surrounded the building! They have built some sort of barrier around the perimeter out of printed copies of the 2003 and 2004 budgets. There is no way out. If anyone knows or is related to a member of the Senate, tell them I will not come to the hearing. I will not answer questions--even by email. Wait, a car is pulling up. Someone is being taken out of the car. Oh, God! It’s John Taylor. They seem to be holding him at gunpoint. I…I can’t quite make out what he is saying but he looks very agitated and I do not think it’s about the yuan peg. Oh no, no, no, no, no, no! They’ve [Error 404]” >>
I can believe Poterba wants to spend more time with his family, but I do remember him saying, in the professor's skit at the MIT Econ Department's annual party in 2003, "Yes, it's all in my new article, How To Finance a War With Tax Cuts, (Hey Look They're Actually Taking This Crap Seriously)."
(I'm paraphrasing and punctuating it wrong, but that was definitely the gist. I wouldn't necessarily assume he voted for Bush, though it's possible.)
Posted by: Katherine at November 30, 2004 10:59 PMis Poterba such a fan of Bush? I know he's pretty conservative for MIT, and the professors' skit at the annual econ department party are not much to go on, but if they're any indication at all and he wasn't cast against his will....not so much.
Posted by: K at November 30, 2004 11:08 PMwhoops. Duplicate...man are your comments slow.
Posted by: Katherine at November 30, 2004 11:32 PMSee? "He said - she said" journalism isn't all bad. First, paraphrase insiders saying nobody who is unwilling to be a cheerleader would want the job. Then, quote somebody who's been asked to serve saying he wouldn't because he wouldn't get to do the job if he took the job. Then, quote a White House source saying the cheerleading notion is "absolutely wrong." Then, actually name some folds who turned the job down (maybe to obscure, ever so slightly, which of them actually said they'd be out of the look if they took the job). Then quote some other well-known conservative/supply-side guys who make it pretty clear they wouldn't take the job. That's the way to treat White House lies. And from the WP, no less.
Posted by: kharris at December 1, 2004 04:42 AM"...name some FOLKS who..." Good grief, what would Mr Dedman (my 3rd grade teacher) say?
Posted by: kharris at December 1, 2004 05:12 AMI trust Poterba's kids understood he just put principle over position!
Posted by: pgl at December 1, 2004 06:24 AM"Which means it's Cokehead's for the asking."
Brilliant Ken, and probably true.
I also enjoyed th3e comments on the new commerce secretary's qualifications - how many he has fired. Not a great way to grow the economy.
Posted by: me at December 1, 2004 07:02 AMBy the way, it's obvious why Pataki's name keeps turning up as mentioned for Bush admin jobs. Part of the conservative movement's mission is to destroy moderate Republicanism. The Bush administration explicitly tries to assist this by giving moderate Republicans from the Northeast jobs, then marginalizing them, waiting until their power base is gone, and then firing them. Anyone remember Christine Todd Whitman?
Posted by: Rich Puchalsky at December 1, 2004 08:17 AMhttp://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/01/business/01calpers.html
California Pension Activist Expects to Be Ousted
By MARY WILLIAMS WALSH
A prominent figure in the corporate governance movement, Sean Harrigan, the president of California's large public pension fund, said yesterday that he expected to be ousted today from the board in retribution for stands it had recently taken on topics like executive pay, boardroom cronyism and high health care costs.
'This is nothing more than an effort to assault the voice of Calpers,' Mr. Harrigan said yesterday in an e-mail message, using the abbreviated name of the California Public Employees Retirement System. Mr. Harrigan has been a trustee of Calpers since 1999 and president since 2003.
A career labor union official, Mr. Harrigan arrived at Calpers after being appointed by Gov. Gray Davis, a Democrat, to a state board that handles personnel matters for the civil service. One duty of that panel, the State Personnel Board, is to elect a trustee to the 13-member board of Calpers. The five-member personnel board is scheduled to vote today on returning Mr. Harrigan to Calpers for another year.
Mr. Harrigan's situation at Calpers became public this week after a group of union presidents and leaders of retiree and consumer groups wrote the State Personnel Board, saying they had learned that there was 'an attempt to remove Sean Harrigan' and urging the board to re-elect him when it votes today.
The letter also expressed the belief that Mr. Harrigan was being opposed by the administration of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and business groups because of Calpers's corporate activism. The governor and business groups say they have not interfered in Calpers's affairs.
'It would be unconscionable if the Schwarzenegger administration and a few narrow corporate interests - such as the Chamber of Commerce - who have opposed corporate reform efforts, were to use the S.P.B. as a pawn in their fight against shareholders and fundamental fairness in our nation's financial markets,' said the letter, which was first reported by The Los Angeles Times.
Calpers has assets of $178 billion and is the largest pension fund in the country. As a giant institutional investor, it has long sought ways to use its large shareholdings to influence corporate behavior, arguing that well-run corporations are the most likely to build shareholder value, which would be in the interests of the retired civil servants.
A spokesman for Mr. Schwarzenegger dismissed as 'paranoid musings and conspiracy theories' any assertion that the governor, a Republican, had interfered with the internal affairs of Calpers.
"paranoid musings and conspiracy theories" they may be. But you'll notice that the spokesman voicing that position didn't say those musings and theories were incorrect - and I'll bet a dollar to a donut they are.
Posted by: Uncle Jeffy at December 1, 2004 11:50 AMWhat is interesting is that no matter the dire concerns of economists, with which I agree, we have finished 2 years of a world bull market in stocks. Investors simply are not worried about a near crisis.
http://www.msci.com/equity/index2.html
National Index Returns
12/31/03 - 11/30/04
Australia 26.5
Canada 20.5
Denmark 26.8
France 14.5
Germany 10.7
Hong Kong 22.1
Ireland 34.0
Japan 10.3
Norway 53.4
Sweden 34.8
Switzerland 10.6
UK 15.8
http://flagship3.vanguard.com/VGApp/hnw/FundsByName
Vanguard Returns
12/31/03 to 11/30/04
S&P is up 7.1%
Value Index is 11.4
Growth Index is 3.4
Mid Cap Index is 15.5%
Small Cap Index is 15.7%
Small Value is 19.9
Europe Index is 16.0
Pacific Index is 13.6
Energy is 38.6
REIT Index is 24.7
Health Care is 4.1
Long Term Corporate Bond Fund is 7.4
High Yield Corporate Bond Fund is 6.1