Jared Bernstein makes Economics look good.
From 2009 to 2011, Jared Bernstein was the Chief Economist and Economic Adviser to Vice President Joe Biden, executive director of the White House Task Force on the Middle Class, and a member of President Obama’s economic team. In May of 2011, he joined the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a liberal fiscal group, as a Senior Fellow. In case you were wondering, Bernstein’s official reason for leaving the White House was because his calls for more stimulus spending were being ignored by a GOP-controlled House in an environment focused on major snips and cuts.
The Pew Research Center has just released a report, though written a year ago, by Jared Bernstein that they say is worth a close look. I’m not so sure. However, I am sure that I, personally, will never know if I have to read it.
When Jared Bernstein explains that the title, “The Lost Decade of the Middle Class,” comes from the observation that real median income or the more comprehensive measure of net worth were lower at the end of the last decade than at the start,” my eyes don’t exactly cloud over.
Instead, in his presence, it’s my hearing that fails.
Jared Bernstein: Easy on the eyes, real easy...
All I hear is: “Historically unusual, if not unprecedented . . . median wages and incomes diverging from productivity growth . . . growing considerably more slowly . . . at least growing in real terms . . . lagging behind productivity but at least beating inflation . . . blah, blah, blah.”
But it’s not the same brain fog that descends and engulfs you when you just happen to show up for an Econ class taught by the Chinese—expert in Economics but novices in English—at The Ohio State University. Hooray for the mandatory Mandarin C! (I got mine—and proud of it!)
Jared Bernstein, contrary to the meager soil I tilled in Economics, holds a Ph.D. in Social Welfare from Columbia University.
Jared Bernstein has authored and co-authored many books for academia, and the rest of us, including “Crunch: Why Do I Feel So Squeezed?” and nine editions of “The State of Working America.”
Jared Bernstein, an expert in the areas of federal and state economic and fiscal policies, income inequality and mobility, trends in employment and earnings, international comparisons, and the analysis of financial and housing markets, who enjoys long walks on the beach and Mozart, is different.
There's just something about that Jared...
For such a glorious freak of nature, I would show up for each and every Agronomics, yodeling, or curling class taught by him. And while every lesson out of his handsome mouth would be brilliant, I would not hear or even remember one word—if you know what I mean.
Undercooked or seasoned.
Salt, pepper, or eggshell.
Any wise man with a manly voice who comes out of the Mattel box with the good looks of Sam Elliott, Carter Oosterhouse, Nick Cannon, or G.I. Joe will always whet more than my appetite.
Coincidentally (or not) and for all the wrong reasons (including the sin of coveting what belongs to another), Jared Bernstein is just my flavor of on-air commentator for CNBC and MSNBC. As through a television glass darkly, he is “The One” I am secretly and obscurely crushin’ on. What about you?
