Bernanke on Jobs

After a few months of strong job growth Chairman Ben Bernanke is calling for caution and maybe even signaling that that Federal Reserve will act in a bigger way to help support the economy. 

The real interesting portion of Bernanke's comments was his comments on why job growth may be accelerating. He talked a little bit about how job growth should be a little lower when the economy is growing at 2% or 3%, yet job growth is happening at a level ordinarily associated with higher growth levels. His rationale is that companies may be compensating for over cutting their workforce as the recession accelerated in the Fall of 2008 and early 2009.

If this is the case we can expect job growth to slow noticeably sometime in the next 3 to 6 months unless some outside factors help the economy along. Fed action would certainly help keep the economy moving, as would a substantial decline in oil prices which would be a quasi tax cut for American consumers. Additionally but far less likely, Congress could take action to reform corporate or personal income taxes. Congress could also halt government layoffs which numbered over 1 million lat year, or could fully fund infrastructure spending to get construction workers back on the job while rebuilding the circulatory system of the American economy. 

Here hoping that our economic luck this year is better than last, but everyone should listen closely to the Chairman's words because without action job growth could stall again. 

More to come on jobs....

I'm Back

Hello Friends,

At this point it is unlikely that anyway still reads this blog, but because I hope people do read in the future, this is my "I'm Back" post. After a long tenure at OFA as a part of President Obama's team, I am back in the real World.

My hope is that from here on out this will be a place where I talk mostly about economic, tax, and education policy, but with a little bit of everything else mixed in.

Here is to a free and open internet where ideas can be exchanged quickly and little cost for the betterment of society.

Thanks for reading,

Econowonk

Apple and The Fight for American Jobs

When famously asked "What kept them up at night?" President George Bush responded an attack on the homeland, and Chinese President Hu Jintao said creating 25 million jobs a year.

The answers of those two President's reflect the fundamental problem we face as a nation. That while we as a country and our policy makers are focused on 25 different issues and non-issues while China and many other nations have a laser focus on job creation.

The article that is the impetuous for this post is called, "How the US Lost Out on the iPhone Work."

I highly recommend the article. In the days to come I will highlight some of the potential policy solutions, but the bottom line for today is that at this moment any good ideas that could come of such a case study are two disparate to attract tenable political support in an election year.