He had them for dinner? Much better than being out to lunch. Yes, Obama has a penchant for inviting the naysayers to his lair, but what makes Evan Thomas think he's going to listen? It could be that he wants THEM to listen. Or that nobody listens.

I don't know who is right about the ways to get out of this mess, and I'm glad their talking, but I want to see some action. I want to see JOBS. You can only save a company for so long by getting rid of the workers and shutting down factories. You can only keep the money flowing for so long by giving it without strings to bankers who don't want to lend it.

You can't have a strong economy without a strong job market. I want to see Obama talking to the people who can actually create jobs. They need to talk about how to create them, how to sustain them and how to pay workers a living wage.

I see a glimmer of hope in the announcement that he is going to crack down on the off-shore crooks who don't see the need to pay their share of U.S taxes, but already they're threatening the loss of more American jobs if anybody messes with them. They don't want to pay taxes to the U.S or hire American workers? Fine. Now they're foreign.

Krugman and Stiglitz want to build the deficit even more. If it means using that considerable stash for useful things like creating and maintaining jobs, I say go for it. But if it's just more money going to the Fat Cats, then get out the chianti and let Hannibal have them. They're useless to us.

Yeah, I was thinkin, I mean did he have them with potatoes and some ketchup?

Krugman wants more money spent just like Ramona here says. But our New President cannot just pull it out of some orifice. And he has a ten year plan that can be added to. And he is interested in Krugman has to say. I believe he is interested anyway.

The market is up. Unemployment rates stink. What will it look like 6 months from now?

It is roadwork season again and I believe that seeing the workers on the roads with the signs will piss off a lot of drivers, but subconsciously--in some Jungian sense-these drivers will realize that people are working and they are working because of THIS PRESIDENT and his initiatives.

How will this play out? What is the placebo affect all by its lonely? Moderate Dems must not be eschewed. Now people are beginning to yell about Senator Lincoln. We need someone named Lincoln in the Senate in our party, ha. And Nebraska. Geeez we need a dem in Nebraska.

And Senator Lincoln was a stalwart for this party when we had a one vote lead in the Senate. She is just one example.

Krugman does not have to work the politics. And yet he is part of the political framework, rootin on the sidelines for liberal causes.

And Krugman aint goin to dump all over the administration anyway.

I'm curious if Krugman's and Stiglitz's impressions of the meeting are? Did they feel Obama was receptive to what they had to say or defensive? Was he peppering them with questions or rationalizing the current plan? i did a brief search, but couldn 't locate anything (assuming either are even willing to discuss it).

Does anyone know if he has also met with Roubini? His would be another good voice to hear from if indeed Obama wants a full hearing of alternative views.

Fascinating. I almost fell off my chair this morning when I read this line in Krugman's NY Times column today:

"Credit where credit is due: President Obama and his economic advisers seem to have steered the economy away from the abyss."

Not that Krugman would be so crass as to toss in a rare compliment in return for dinner, but I'm sure it didn't hurt!

Obama invited me for dinner.

But I had to decline. He looked a little hungry.

Its nice that he is meeting with dissenting economists but I am not sure what good it will do. I guess my biggest worry is that nobody, economist or not, seem to have a solution to this.

The truth is we are in the very beginning of a fundamental restructuring. We have millions of jobs that will never come back. In the Auto industry, Finance, Journalism, construction, real estate, printing, and soon Healthcare. The causes are multiple (from the demographic decline of middle class to the breakdown of our financial risk management systems, to the radical changes caused by our new information technology), and the ramifications are still little understood.

Its all well and good to want aggressive action on banks and quickly punish the risk takers- but towards what aim?

I share the Krugman/Stiglitz financial crisis view, but then what? Do we really think that if we write off a few trillion in toxic debt that these industries will magically return to viability? There is no easy or politically viable solution to what comes next. I can only hope that Obama and Larry summers recognize that and hence are okay with not rushing dramatic action without the first enacting the necessary accompanying legal changes. Obama needs political creditability to push through fundamental changes so a go slow approach might be the wisest one.

Or maybe I'm drinking the cool aid.

Did Goldman-Sachs pick up the tab?

From Andrew Leonard's "How the World Works" blog over at Salon.com:

Oh, but would I have loved to have been a mouse in that dining room.

KRUGMAN: If you do not nationalize Citigroup and Bank of America, you will have proven to the American people that the White House is owned, lock-stock-and-barrel, by Wall Street!

STIGLITZ: The Geithner plan to fix the banking system is outright robbery of the American people, Mr. President!

OBAMA: How do you like your roast beef? Raw and bloody, I presume? Please, have some more.