Fourstar Wealth’s Brian Kasal Meets Two Leaders of US Council of Economic Advisors (CEA) at the University of Chicago Becker Friedman Institute

On Tuesday Nov 11th, Nobel Laureate Lars Peter Hansen (on the right in the picture) served as interviewer for the evening to interview and discussion about the economy and  the recovery and the outlook from here. 

Christina Roemer (Pictured in the middle) served as the first chair of CEA under President Obama. Christina was generally positive on the economy from here, albeit short term concerned about the wax, very concerned about Europe.  In the next few years we look for better economy.  TARP And the Paulson Treasury kept the economy from melting down but now the economy has caught on however slow. 

Ed Lazear (pictured on the left)  was CEA Chair under President George W  Bush. He was very optimistic now and not as concerned about the short term issues as Christina Roemer. He was optimistic citing the stock market as a leading indicator of economy. While the Great Recession on a 40 scale was a 12 recession, early 1980’s was a 10, depression of late 1929 thru 1940 was a 35 on that scale. 

Both Roemer and Lazear were generally happy with the work of the Federal Reserve during the 2008 financial crisis. Both economists were not aware how bad the economic crisis would get. Once it was clear that things were trending very badly, however, they both agree the best possible person to manage this process was the then Fed Chair, Ben Bernanke. Bernanke was specifically involved in studying the Great Depression and the government’s correct and incorrect actions that caused the Great Depression to be more severe than it needed to be. Bernanke is a scholar on that subject and had written his personal thesis on that subject. While the final chapter on the 2008 financial crisis has net yet been written and the economy continues to be sluggish, both economists felt that very serious consequences were avoided. They were confident that the Janet Yellen FED would manage the recovery well and had good tools to do so. 

It was quite an honor to have a discussion with these economist and this type of access events keep FourStar Wealth Advisors and CEO Brian Kasal well informed. We will continue to report in as we have meetings that we can report.

***The above represents Mr. Kasal’s recollection of the event and does not purport to represent the opinions of any of the named parties.***