Embarrassing interview with Biden’s top economic advisor goes viral

: World Tribune; 05 May 2024; Hits: 7

by WorldTribune Staff, May 5, 2024

So one of the architects of Bidenomics has degrees in music and social work. Does that not explain a lot?

In a video that has gone viral, Jared Bernstein, the chief economic adviser to the Biden White House, attempts and fails to explain how money works.

“The government definitely prints money, and it definitely lends that money … by selling bonds. Is that what they do? They sell bonds, yeah, they sell bonds. Right? Since they sell bonds, and people buy the bonds and lend them the money,” Bernstein, chair of the Council of Economic Advisers, said when asked why the federal government borrows currency it can print.

“I guess I’m just, I can’t really, I don’t get it. I don’t know what they’re talking about,” the economic adviser to Biden added. “Like, ’cause it’s like the government clearly prints money; it does it all the time. And it clearly borrows. Otherwise we wouldn’t be having [this] conversation. So I don’t think there’s anything confusing there.”

Bernstein’s comments came during an interview for the newly released documentary Finding the Money, which makes the case for “flipping our understanding of the national debt,” arguing that the debt is “not actually a debt for us taxpayers at all” but “simply a historical record of the number of dollars created by the U.S. federal government.”

Bernstein, who has been an economic adviser to Biden for many years, does not have an academic background in economics. He earned a bachelor’s degree in music from the Manhattan School of Music, as well as a master of social work from Hunter College and a doctorate of social work from Columbia University.

He has taught at several colleges, including Columbia and New York University, and worked as an economist for the Department of Labor during the Clinton administration. Bernstein has also worked at liberal think tanks, including the Economic Policy Institute and the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.