Austan Goolsbee is leaving the White House economic team. This is the fifth advisor in the last 2 1/2 years to leave President Obama.
Exactly how good an advisor was he? In a 2007 op-ed for The New York Times, he derided those who called sub-prime mortgages "irresponsible." He preferred to describe them as "innovations in the mortgage market" to expand the pool of home-buyers. Well, that was certainty a good piece of advice. Oops. He is also famous for pointing out the huge numbers of start-up companies who fail "for lack of government support." Or possibly for lack of a viable business model. You just never know.
Reportedly Obama does not even get daily economic briefings anymore. But understandably, he doesn't want to get daily feedback on how miserably he and his team have been performing. The captain of the Titanic at some point probably tired of getting updates from his crew as well. I imagine that the navigators would have left the ship, too, if they could have.
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