Wal-Mart Defender To Direct Obama’s Economic Policy!

[Better Believe It]

THIS IS NOT GOOD I'M DISAPPOINTED

June 10, 2008
The New York Sun
Wal-Mart Defender To Direct Obama’s Economic Policy
Appointment of Jason Furman Immediately Meets With Skepticism
by Josh Gerstein

Just days after clinching the Democratic presidential nomination, Senator Obama is naming as his economic policy director an economist who has clashed with critics of Wal-Mart by defending the company as a boon to poor Americans.

The appointment of Jason Furman, 37, a former Clinton administration official who is a visiting scholar at New York University, immediately met with skepticism from some who have faulted Wal-Mart for being stingy toward its workforce.

“It’s surprising because this guy seems to feel that Wal-Mart’s low-wage, low-benefit business model is good for America. That’s just flat-out wrong,” the executive director of Wal-Mart Watch, David Nassar, said. “This guy helped to lend credibility to the Wal-Mart business model. That was disappointing then and it’s disappointing now given this position,” said Mr. Nassar, whose group is backed by a board that includes the president of the Service Employees International Union, Andrew Stern. Mr. Nassar quickly added that he was “not critiquing the Obama campaign.”

As the company became a pariah in Democratic circles, Mr. Furman stepped out on the issue in 2005 by publishing a 16-page paper titled, “Wal-Mart: A Progressive Success Story.” He argued that the huge cost savings the company has delivered to its customers, who tend to have low incomes, far outweighed any impact the chain may have had on wages. “The collateral damage from these efforts to get Wal-Mart to raise its wages and benefits is way too enormous and damaging to working people and the economy more broadly for me to sit by idly and sing ‘Kum-Ba-Ya’ in the interests of progressive harmony,” Mr. Furman added.

Please read the entire article at:

http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/06/10/9534/

[newmajority]

1. I can't believe that common dreams is reprinting bullshit from the PNAC Sun

This shit was posted three times in GD: P. It should have been left buried there.

[NotThisTime]

2. particularly since the group is made up of all different people w/different opinions

[Better Believe It]

3. I Didn't See It Or Read It In That Board. So It's Not True?

Jason Furman hasn't been appointed Obama's Economic Policy Director.

Thanks for the correction.

Have you contacted Common Dreams and pointed out their error?

[Better Believe It]

4. It's Unfortunately True: I Just Did A Google Search

Somehow I missed all of these articles. Like I said, this is not good and I hope he sacks Furman. Here's just one article from the Los Angeles Times:

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Labor union officials and some liberal activists say Furman is too enamored of globalization and too easy on Wal-Mart.
By Tom Hamburger, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
June 10, 2008

WASHINGTON -- Labor union officials and some liberal activists were seething Tuesday over Barack Obama's choice of centrist economist Jason Furman as the top economic advisor for the campaign. The critics say Furman, who was appointed to the post Monday, has overstated the potential benefits of globalization, Social Security private accounts and the low prices offered by Wal-Mart -- considered a corporate pariah by the labor movement.

Officials from several labor organizations phoned the Obama campaign to complain about the appointment and circulated e-mail messages containing quotes from some of Furman's work. Campaign officials responded that some of the quotes were inaccurate or out of context. They expressed confidence in Furman's abilities and said that Obama would be listening to an array of advisors.

"We are very much taken aback that Furman has been put at the head of this team," said Marco Trbovich, a senior aide to United Steelworkers President Leo W. Gerard, whose support is considered crucial to Obama's success in heavily unionized areas of Pennsylvania, Ohio, Minnesota and other battleground states.

Lori Wallach, a lawyer and leading opponent of free-trade policies, said the appointment was jarring from a policy and a political perspective.
"Furman seems like a liability, given his anti-worker writings and statements about Wal-Mart, fair trade and other middle-class issues," said Wallach, director of Public Citizen's global trade watch division.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/washingtondc/la-na-furman11-2008jun11,0,2364094.story