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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: tejek who wrote (454531)	2/6/2009 7:11:15 AM
From: Road Walker	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1574373

Obama names advisers to help right the economy By PHILIP ELLIOTT, Associated Press Writer Philip Elliott, Associated Press Writer 26 mins ago WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama is naming a team of outside economic advisers to help him steer the nation's economy out of the tailspin that has dominated his first two weeks in office. The president was to announce the team members Friday as the White House braced for more bad news in the unemployment report for January. Obama planned to use the Economic Recovery Advisory Board announcement as a way to address the millions of out-of-work Americans. Paul Volcker, a former Federal Reserve chairman and a top Obama adviser, already has been announced as the leader of the high-profile panel of advisers. Members will include former Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman William Donaldson, TIAA-CREF President-CEO Roger Ferguson and Harvard University professor Martin Feldstein, who wrote a Wall Street Journal op-ed piece last year titled "John McCain Has a Tax Plan To Create Jobs." Obama friend and campaign finance chairwoman Penny Pritzker also is on the board, as is Caterpillar Inc. Chairman-CEO Jim Owens and General Electric Co. CEO Jeffrey R. Immelt. Two labor officials — Anna Burger of Service Employees International Union and Richard Trumka of the AFL-CIO — also were named to the 15-member board designed to offer Obama advice as he seeks a way to weather the crisis and rebuild the economy. To that end, Obama and his top aides expressed frustration with his economic stimulus legislation being debated in the Senate. Lawmakers on Thursday inched toward a compromise package of spending and tax cuts that could cost well over $900 billion. "We lost half a million jobs each month for two consecutive months," Obama told reporters traveling with him to Williamsburg, Va., aboard his first Air Force One flight as president. "Things could continue to decline. We'll know the number tomorrow. Every economist, even those who may quibble with the details of the makeup in a package, will agree that if you've got a trillion dollars in lost demand this year, and a trillion dollars in lost demand next year, then you've got to have a big enough recovery package to actually make up for those lost jobs and lost demand." The Labor Department on Thursday reported that the number of newly unemployed workers seeking jobless benefits hit the highest level since 1982. Friday's employment report was expected to creep closer to double digits, up from the 7.5 percent rate economists documented in December. In its report Thursday, the Labor Department said jobless claims surged to a seasonally adjusted 626,000 last week from the previous week's figure of 591,000. A year ago, unemployment claims stood at 351,000. White House press secretary Robert Gibbs told reporters that failing to do something to stimulate the economy would produce more jobs lost and less economic stability. "Obviously we'd like to get the economy back to where when you're reading the Detroit papers you're reading about the increases in sales in autos and not the big decreases," Gibbs said Thursday.