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Obama Says U.S. Must Reduce Debt, Spur Job Growth
(Bloomberg) -- President Barack Obama said the U.S. economy has pulled "back from the brink" and the government must now "get serious" about reducing debt and helping spur job growth.
Oh, now he wants to cut debt ...
Addressing a panel of economists and business and labor leaders, the president said the government and private industry must take "bold, innovative action" to bring the unemployment rate down and lay the foundation for future growth. "We just are not where we need to be yet," Obama told his Economic Recovery Advisory Board, headed by former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker. Along with helping promote job growth, "The government is going to have to get serious about reducing our debt levels."

This was the second time the full board has met to brief the president on ways to create jobs and encourage economic growth. Obama formed the advisory panel in February to provide an "independent voice on economic issues." Today's meeting focused on creating jobs through innovation.

Obama said if "entrepreneurship" and "dynamism" are encouraged by the government "there's no reason why we're not going to be able to not only create jobs, but the kind of sustainable economic growth that everybody is looking for."

Private Investment
Still, he said, government spending can't replace business investment and the recovery from the worst recession since the 1930s "has to be led by the private sector."
That's not what he really believes, that's just what Mr. Axelrod told him to say ahead of the election tomorrow.
I work and I slave on behalf of you racist peons and what do I get? I'm stuck with a business sector that doesn't pull its weight.
The recommendations made today, Obama said, would be reviewed over the next two to three weeks by Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, White House chief economist Christina Romer and economic adviser Larry Summers.

Along with Volcker, board members include former Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman William Donaldson; Robert Wolf, chairman and chief executive officer of UBS Americas; Penny Pritzker, who led Obama's campaign fundraising effort and is chairman of Pritzker Realty Group; Jeffrey Immelt the chief executive of General Electric Co.; Caterpillar Inc. Chief Executive Officer Jim Owens; and AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka.

There is "vigorous discussion" among panel members about the "regulation of the financial system and other elements of ensuring that we never return to the fiscal disaster, the financial disaster that we had beginning in 2007," board member John Doerr, a venture capitalist at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, told Bloomberg Television in an interview this morning.

Reversing the Decline
"There's pretty clear evidence that the decline in the economy has reversed," said Doerr, citing the Commerce Department report that showed that gross domestic product grew at a 3.5 percent rate in the year's third quarter, which ended Sept. 30. Economic activity, though, "leads job creation, and jobs is our job No. 1," he said.

The U.S. economy has lost more than 7 million jobs since the recession began in December 2007. Even with the $787 billion stimulus plan passed in Frebruary, the employment rate rose to 9.8 percent last month.

"We anticipate that we are going to see some job losses in the weeks and months to come," Obama said today.
As opposed to the millions thousands hundreds dozens one saved so far ...
Immelt said during the panel's discussion that some jobs in the financial services and construction sectors "might not come back." He said the U.S. must increase exports and that clean energy industries will be a major source of job growth.

Exports
Immelt suggested doubling exports as a percentage of GDP over a certain time period, which would create three to five million jobs, he said. "There is growth to be had out there," he said. Trade policies should be clarified, "from the standpoint of making people understand that America is confident, that we're in business," Immelt said. "We're in business to sell, we've got the kinds of technologies and products that can be very important."
So how's about approving the free trade agreement with Colombia?
Organized labor is urging Obama to embrace an "ambitious, long-term public investment agenda" focusing on public work projects, Trumka said. "We're talking about mid-term and long-term things," he said. "After the recovery comes, we're still going to have jobs deficit, we're still going to have wage stagnation." "We can't go back to the bubble economy," Trumka said.
Posted by: Fred 2009-11-03
http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=282368