KeithHennessey.com

This morning on Fox News Sunday, host Chris Wallace moderated a discussion about the auto industry.  One of his guests was Dr. Austan Goolsbee, who is a Member of President Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers and chief economist on the President’s Economic Recovery Advisory Board.
I want to focus on some incorrect and inflammatory statements by [...]

Many of you are new to this blog since I wrote extensively about autos six weeks ago.  As background, I coordinated the auto loan process for President Bush last fall as the Director of the White House National Economic Council (the position now held by Dr. Lawrence Summers).  I wrote a series of posts on [...]

THE WHITE HOUSE
Office of the Press Secretary
_______________________________________________________________________________________
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
June 1, 2009
BACKGROUND BRIEFING
BY SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIALS
ON THE GENERAL MOTORS RESTRUCTURING
May 31, 2009
Via Conference Call
7:10 P.M. EDT
MS. PSAKI:  Thank you, everyone, for joining the call.  Just a reminder that the call this evening is on background, and you can attribute quotes to a senior administration official.  And [...]

In a few hours I will offer my thoughts and reactions to the General Motors bankruptcy filing and the President’s noon announcement.  For now, here is what I have been able to figure out from the White House fact sheet and secondary source reporting through CNBC and the Wall Street Journal.  I assume that both [...]

Tuesday I began with a simple example, which I am calling Large Bank.
Yesterday we looked at TARP I, in which the government would buy troubled/toxic assets from banks.
Today I will describe TARP II, the plan we (the Bush Administration) implemented, in which the government made direct equity investments in banks to help fill their capital [...]

Suppose I bought an iPhone yesterday for $500.
Suppose I argue that I will save $2000 this week, because I intend to refraining from buying an additional iPhone today, nor will I buy one this Wednesday, Thursday, or Friday.
Suppose I plan to buy a new flat screen TV tomorrow for $1500.
Can I claim I that have [...]

There has been a lot of debate about whether the President’s budget improves or worsens the future deficit picture.  This is a debate mostly about baselines – what do you assume would happen otherwise?  Rather than engaging in that debate here, I am going to look at the results of what the President has proposed.
What [...]

Budget Director Peter Orszag wrote on his blog yesterday that he thinks “Debt held by the public net of financial assets is the most meaningful measure of current federal debt.”
I wrote earlier today why I think Director Orszag’s new metric is misleading and dangerous.  Now, however, I’m going to take his argument [...]

Yesterday on his blog the President’s Budget Director, Peter Orszag, asks himself and then answers the question, “How much does the federal government owe?”
This sounds like a technical question of concern only to “those of us wearing the green eyeshades,” but the Director’s suggested answer has dangerous ramifications, and could mislead or at [...]

As I explained yesterday in part 4 of this series, the President delivered different substantive messages to General Motors and Chrysler.  I would like now to focus on one element of that message, because there’s an enormous hole in yesterday’s announcement, and it appears that the press missed it.  It appears that the Administration did [...]