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There is much debate about whether a health care reform bill should include a government-run health insurance plan, a so-called “public option.”  Advocates argue that such a plan can compete fairly with private health insurance, and that this competition would “keep insurers honest.”  They also argue that more choices are a good thing.
I fall in [...]

This is the second in a series of occasional posts about the nitty gritty of working in the West Wing of the White House.  I am describing things as they were in the Bush Administration.  YMMV in the Obama Administration.  Again, it seems a bit silly to write about such trivial details, but given the [...]

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 [...]

Today the 19 largest banks are getting the results of their stress tests from their regulators.  Should these results be made public?
This is not a simple question.
The big upside is that markets will have more information, and that all market participants will have access to the same information.  This can allow investors, counterparties, and customers [...]

Despite Secretary Geithner’s statement to the contrary, I still think the Administration is running out of room within the $700 B Troubled Assets Relief Program (TARP).  In my last four posts on TARP funding (1 2 3 4), I have stuck to what I think I can demonstrate analytically.  I am now going to shift [...]

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 [...]

I would like to compliment and thank President Obama for saying this in Strasbourg, France last Friday:
As we take these steps, we also affirm that we must not erect new barriers to commerce; that trade wars have no victors. We can’t give up on open markets, even as we work to ensure that trade is [...]

Thanks to Reuters’ MacroScope blog for noticing:
Keith Hennessey, a former top economic adviser to President George W. Bush, saw this one coming. He rightly predicted that the Group of 20 would drop a key word from its communique at the conclusion of the London Summit: Free.

Here is my original post from Wednesday:  A quick guide [...]

Heidi Collins of CNN interviewed former Clinton Labor Secretary Robert Reich and me this morning around 10:30 AM on CNN Newsroom.
To my surprise, Secretary Reich and I agreed on a lot.  We both came out strong against protectionism, and complimented the G-20 leaders for making a strong statement about this.  We’ll see if the leaders [...]

The Bureau of Labor Statistics released the March employment report at 8:30 am.  Here is the least you need to know:

Net payroll employment declined in March by 663,000 jobs.
That’s a terrible number, and in line with expectations.
The unemployment rate increased from 8.1% to 8.5%.

Much of the press coverage talks about “5.1 million jobs lost since [...]