Baghdad Hassett Calls For More Government Jobs

During an interview with Politico, Council of Economic Advisers chairman Kevin Hassett (aka Baghdad Hassett) said:

We’ve not done a good job as a society at thinking about how do we take people who have become discouraged and reconnect them.  And it’s such an urgent problem that government programs that directly hire people might be part of the solution.

Which proves that Baghdad doesn't even get basic supply and demand economics.

Markets clear. There is always a going warm body wage.

The "discouraged" worker is a myth. It is either a case where the potential worker is living too fat off the government dole to take a job or the minimum wage is above the warm body wage thus making it difficult to obtain a job.

BTW, as far as I am concerned, that Baghdad is earning more than the warm body wage is proof enough that there is too much money in the hands of government already.

Here's some bonus Baghdad Hassett coverage.

In his book (co-authored with James Glassman), Dow 36,000, which was published in 1999 just before the stock market Internet bubble burst he wrote: 

A great dividend paying stock over the last 10-years has been Fannie Mae...In May 1999, the stock was trading at $67 per share and paying a dividend of $1.08 per share...

If the dividend grows at 30% for the next five years...we calculate that Fannie Mae's perfectly reasonable price should be $315 per share.

The stock peaked at $88.75 within a year of Baghdad's book coming out. It currently trades at $3.04 and hasn't paid a dividend in more than 9 years.

 -RW

(ht Walter Block)