Paul Krugman, and many dkos diarists and commenters, rightfully caution against the downside interpretation of the President's upcoming advocacy for "competitiveness" as potentially opening the door to all manner of backsliding on hard won guarantees to American workers rely upon. In this diary I offer another, possibly contrarian, rumination upon the President's recent busines friendly appointees.
"Arguably, Mr. Obama has enlisted an old cliché on behalf of a good cause, as a way to sell a much-needed increase in public investment to a public thoroughly indoctrinated in the view that government spending is a bad thing." -Paul Krugman, New York Times, 23 Jan 2011
I think Paul Krugman knows what is afoot. He knows "The Market" does not represent the summation of logical utility maximization but rather the sequelae of human psychology and deficits of short term focused decision making ability. He said as much in his recent monograph "The Return of Depression Economics" that describes in laymans detail the genesis of recent recessions.
The reasons for recovery from such events as just as arcane as their genesis but seems to require a healthy dose of confidence on the part of those making grants of credit and those asking for such. Unfortunately, confidence is just as likely an emotion as it is a statistical or mathematical state of business.
Thus the optics of the Executive Branches outreach need to be calibrated to engender a sense of optimism in those sitting on mountains of capital; speculators, corporations, creditors. One way of promoting this positive outlook towards the future of investment is to generate the feeling that the captains of industry have a say, that the executive branch sends signals that it is receptive by dint of encouraging appointments. This is not to suggest that they will have their way with public policy, only that they feel some sense of investment in public policy.
I think such efforts will also have a psychological effect upon smaller business endeavors if the atmosphere of pessimism begins to dissipate. As the recession's fog of uncertainty lifts, producer and consumer hedge less against the perception of uncertainty and begin to return to the day-to-day economics that underlies the current format of our national macro-economics.
In his dealings with these business friendly appointees, I have confidence that the POTUS will continue to vector towards the progressive ends we share and by dint of his persuasive nature may effect some degree of progressive rehabilitation upon them. Despite disappointment with the "Tax Deal", it gives me tenetive cause for optimism in this regard. Sure their are risks but things might have been far far worse.
I know the POTUS is a cautious person whose main opponent is the partisan [Republican] gridlock that has eroded the general Welfare and red-lined domestic Tranquility. He could have hoisted the Republicans on their own petard time and time again. But what might that have wrought besides more bitter entrenchment? Less incremental progress? A weimar-esque economic collapse? My sense of the POTUS strategic style echoes that of Chess Master Anatoly Karpov who said,
"Let us say the game may be continued in two ways: one of them is a beautiful tactical blow that gives rise to variations that don't yield to precise calculation; the other is clear positional pressure that leads to an endgame with microscopic chances of victory.... I would choose the latter without thinking twice."
The optimistic side of me frames the President's actions as deliberately progressive in word and deed. He must be perceived as unredeemably naive and sincere in deed if he is to change the way American's think about politics and how it should be conducted. He is asserting ownership over the language of moderation/centrism and reformulating them towards progressive ends in the face of regressive hypocracy[sic] and intransigence. In so doing, he is making the progressive worldview more attractive, more sensible, more present, to all those unafilliated biconceptuals that decide elections.