EXCELLENT appointment for Biden: Jared Bernstein

[burythehatchet]

http://thinkprogress.org/2008/12/05/bernstein-biden/

Biden taps progressive economist Jared Bernstein as top adviser.»


Vice President-elect Joseph Biden has just announced that Jared Bernstein, Director of the Living Standards program at the Economic Policy Institute, will fill the new position of Chief Economist and Economic Policy Advisor to the Vice President. Bernstein is a renowned progressive economist, with expertise on the middle-class squeeze, income inequality and mobility, low-wage labor markets, and poverty. In May, Bernstein wrote on Huffington Post that it’s now time for progressives to govern after years of conservative failures:

Check out his positions here:
http://www.epi.org/author_publications.cfm?author_id=115

[firedupdem]

1. Sounds like a good guy. n/t

[rockymountaindem]

2. Good

I don't know if this qualifies as "a bone" for progressives, but at least there will be two voices (including Becerra) in there now.

[EFerrari]

3. The EPI has always seemed like a smart, productive outfit to me.

Good for Joe!

[BrklynLiberal]

4. Sounds like anexcellent choice. They even used the word "progressive" about him!!!!

Funny quote in a comment on the article.

Meanwhile, Obama is coming under criticism from an influential Democratic Congress member for deferring to President Bush on handling the economic crisis during the transition.On Thursday, Congress member Barney Frank, the chair of the House Financial Services Committee, said, “At a time of great crisis with mortgage foreclosures and autos, Obama says we only have one president at a time. I’m afraid that overstates the number of presidents we have. He’s got to remedy that situation.”

[Ichingcarpenter]

5. He's had a Blog at Talking Points Memo - Great pick by Biden.

Trickle Down...R.I.P.
August 26, 2008, 11:11PM

Look for this obituary in tomorrow's paper:

Trickle-down economics died yesterday morning at 10AM. The cause of death was a data release from the US Census Bureau, but trickle-down had been ailing from lack of empirical support for decades. Also known as "supply-side economics," trickle-down was the love child of Ronald Reagan, Arthur Laffer, and Jude Wanniski. It is survived by Larry Kudlow and Co., and the editorial page of the Wall St. Journal.

That's what you should see, but you probably won't. Let me explain.




Now Just Hold On, Hank
September 22, 2008, 11:15AM

Just a few quick, disjointed thoughts on the bailout, a plan that I, like others, view as fundamentally flawed.

First, the chutzpah of Paulson and the administration is astounding. They're saying to Congress, "you'd better do this quick, without conditions, or else!"

Hold on a second. The Treasury and the firms they are representing do not, I repeat, do not, have the bargaining clout here. We--the taxpayers and their reps--do. They're coming to us saying, "we've screwed up and need you to pick up the pieces to the tune of $700 billion." And they've got the brass ones to try to muscle us around about it?!? If Pelosi and company can't get the spine to ignore this muscle play and craft a better plan, then they're not doing their jobs.


http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/talk/blogs/bernstein/

[burythehatchet]

6. I am very curious to see how Biden is deployed. He could be the

key. A force of good equal in scale to the evil that is Dick Palpatine.