Jamesian Philosophy Refreshed

Former Vice President Joseph Biden, in a recent announcement of his economic plan, used the phrase "shovel ready." There are lots of shovel ready jobs in building infrastructure. One might argue that this is a time in which all liberty loving folks should be directed all their/our fire at the Orange Dynast, not at Joe. Still, I have to have a go at this unfortunate phrase. Politicians talk about "shovel ready" jobs because they want to convey the impression that it is easy for public spending to put people to work. "There are jobs to be done, we [the clique making this claim today] know what they are, and some of it is as simple as pointing a new hire to a shovel, then pointing him to the place where the hole needs to be dug." Biden should remember the phrase "shovel ready," because he and former President Obama used that phrase in their own campaigning in 2008. They won. Those public investment jobs turned out to be tricky to create aft...

The speculation continues about the successor to Ben Bernanke. From a breaking-glass-ceilings point of view, Janet Yellen, now the vice chair, would become the first female chair. Crash-tingle-ouch. From an impressive resume point of view, she is a very impressive candidate, glass crashing notwithstanding. She is, after all, the vice chair at present. She was for more than six years President of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco. Under Bill Clinton, she was a member of the President's Council of Economic Advisors. Going back a bit further, she did her undergrad work at Brown University and her graduate studies at Yale, receiving a Ph.D. from the latter in 1971. She is what is known in monetary policy as a "dove." The term arose because somebody somewhere internalized the metaphor of a "war" on inflation. So central bankers willing to risk recession or worse to fight inflation are "hawks" and those willing to make peace with inflation ...

The econoblogosphere is abuzz with the question of the relative merits of the two people most likely to receive Obama's nod to become the next Federal Reserve chairman when Bernanke leaves next year. It seems to have come down to Janet Yellen or Larry Summers. Nine links, presented without further comments. Felix Salmon / Ezra Klein Slate Also Slate Sheila Bair MarketWatch Recent speech by Yellin PRI Boston Globe