Wal-Mart Defender To Direct Obama's Economic Policy

The appointment of Jason Furman, 37, a former Clinton administration official who is a visiting scholar at New York University, immediately met with skepticism from some who have faulted Wal-Mart for being stingy toward its workforce.

source


Wal-mart has a image problem and is working overtime in an effort to correct it. They have been accused of paying low wages, forcing employees to work off the clock, meddling in US presidential campaign, costly healthcare plan, hurting other businesses, being anti-union, hiring undocumented immigrants to clean its stores, gender discrimination, and the list goes on and on. This website will provide more info on some of the problems that are contributing to Wal-mart's poor image.

Mr. Furman has defended Wal-mart's business practice and wrote this
paper or essay titled Wal-Mart: A Progressive Success Story.
An interesting article detailing how Wal-mart helps low income family more in the form of lower prices despite paying lower wages. What I find interesting is this part...

More puzzling is that some progressives have described
Medicaid, food stamps, the EITC, and public housing assistance as “corporate welfare.”4 The
right response to Wal-Mart is not to scale back these programs but to expand them in order to
fulfill the goal of making work pay.
1

PDF File


From what I gather is that the government should foot the bill to give further assistance to those workers who earn low wages at places like Wal-Mart.


I find all of this interesting because I thought Democrats believed in

Right for workers to join a union. Wal-Mart doesn't.
Higher wages for workers to make an honest living. Wal-Mart doesn't.

Obama's economic director seems to argue against this.

It does show that this guy would like corporate welfare expanded. This means more tax dollars while Wal-Mart continues to make profits.

Where is the cry for windfall profit tax on Wal-Mart?

Obama's economic director philosophy could very well be an indicator as to what kind of economy we can look forward to.

Did I mention that walmart is also being blamed for


WalMart - Exporting jobs, importing lead painted toys, selling out America wholesale

and here is the site that says so... I will say that it is a blog but I find it

interesting where it is posted ...check out the website name

www.democrats.org...

reply to post by jam321


Considering Senator Obama has said he would like a collection of different views and perspectives to offer input into his decision making process I am not taken aback by a single advisor having expressed unpopular views and don't think we can instantaneously make the leap and paint Obama with the brush of a single advisors view on a given topic ...ditto for McCain's economic advisors...and he has some odd ducks as well.

A few more Obama Economic policy advisors:
Jason Furman (director of economy policy)
Austan Goolsbee (senior economic policy advisor), University of Chicago tax policy expert
Karen Kornbluh (policy director)
David Cutler, Harvard health policy expert
Jeff Liebman, Harvard welfare expert source
Michael Froman, Citigroup executive
Daniel Tarullo, Georgetown law professor
David Romer, Berkeley macroeconomist
Christina Romer, Berkeley economic historian
Richard Thaler, University of Chicago behavioral finance expert
Robert Rubin, former Treasury Secretary
Larry Summers, former Treasury Secretary
Alan Blinder, former Vice-chairman of the Federal Reserve
Jared Bernstein, Economic Policy Institute labor economist
James Galbraith, University of Texas macroeconomist
Paul Volcker, Chairman of the Federal Reserve 1979-1987
Laura Tyson, Berkeley international economist, Bill Clinton economic advisor
Robert Reich, Berkeley public policy professor, former Secretary of Labor
Peter Henry, Stanford international economist
Gene Sperling, former White House economic adviser
econ4obama.blogspot.com...

Here is a disparaging list of some of McCain's Economic Advisors...
The nit picking and back and forth over career specifics of Economic Advisors could go on forever.
econ4obama.blogspot.com...

And then there is Phil Gramm
thinkprogress.org...

Jamie ...Lets just assume McCain and Obama have selected a wide variety of economic advisors to better their objective decision process.

Otherwise we can start the back and forth on this minutia and I'll dig into McCain economic policy staff, but really...there are better things to debate.

I guess paying low wages isn't an issue.

I guess the right for people to unionize isn't an issue.

I guess the fact that WalMart business practice is sending jobs overseas is not an issue.

I guess not providing workers with better healthcare while making millions in profit is not an issue.

This is the business model Jason Furman defends and on top of that he thinks that government should provide more assistance via corporate welfare so that businesses that use the WalMart model can continue to pay low wages. But I guess that is not an issue either.

a single advisors view on a given topic

Mr. Furman is not just a single adviser. He is the top economic adviser for the campaign.

Labor union officials and some liberal activists were seething Tuesday over Barack Obama’s choice of centrist economist Jason Furman as the top economic advisor for the campaign.

source


Then include what Obama had to say about Wal-Mart during the campaign.

"Wal-Mart is making enormous profits, and yet it has chosen to go with low wages and diminished benefits," Obama told listeners.

source

During a question and answer session, Obama was asked about the anti-union Wal-Mart. "I won't shop there," he said. Obama has criticized Wal-Mart for how it deals with its workers. His wife, Michelle, sits on the board of TreeHouse Foods, a major Wal-Mart supplier.

source

Obama has said that he is for higher wages, favors workers right to join a union, wants to keep jobs from going overseas, and wants better healthcare but then goes out and gets a top economic adviser who defends a company that is doing exactly the opposite of what Obama favors.

And you tell me that this is not an issue. Yes, I am sure he will get input from other economic advisers but ultimately his top economic adviser will tell Obama which way to go. Otherwise why hire Furman as his top economic adviser. I really don't think Obama has the experience of an economist.

As for your personal vendetta or threat feel free to dig and make your own thread on anything you want about McCain advisers. That is your right. It is also my right to post what I feel is a real issue. You have the power to ignore this thread if you feel that this isn't your cup of tea.



[edit on 8-9-2008 by jam321]