Austan Goolsbee, Interview: Des Moines Register

Article excerpts below. A partial video of the interview is also available. —

“I’m hopeful that we can keep it as just a credit tightening, not a true financial crisis.”

“If there is a regional and commercial banking, if the credit crunch turns into something worse that will be a threat to Iowa, to Illinois, to a bunch of places in the Midwest.”

“We may see a fair bit more (credit tightening) to come.”

“I’m an old school data dog … If you’re trying to figure out what’s happening, go sniff a lot of things. I still kind of feel like we’re in that phase.”

“I fully expect that you’re going to see businesses say, ‘Oh. We’re getting squeezed like never before. Look at how much our profit rates are falling. That’s a sign that wages are out of control.’”

“If the real wage now goes up faster than prices, that’s what you would expect to happen. That’s the way it’s supposed to happen. It’s not supposed to be that business margins rise when there are costs getting squeezed.”