Not just in policy!
Budget Chief Peter Orszag: Obama's 'Super-Nerd'
Orszag thinks that economics and medicine are both beginning to take into account a factor that had been left out of scientific models for years: human behavior.
"Too many academic fields have tried to apply pure mathematical models to activities that involve human beings. And whenever that happens — whether it's in economics or health care or medical science — whenever human beings are involved, an approach that is attracted by that purity will lead you astray," Orszag says.
Orszag has a doctorate from the London School of Economics, but says he feels like he was somewhat mistrained as a pure economist. Now, real life is teaching him some lessons. He says that people are not likely to do anything that's hard, such as saving money or taking care of one's health — no matter how good the incentives are.
Regardless of the data, psychology matters. Orszag has employed this knowledge while training for a marathon.
"If I didn't achieve what I wanted to, a very large contribution would automatically come out of my credit card and go to a charity that I very much didn't support," Orszag says of his training strategy. "So that was a very strong motivation, as I was running through mile 15 or 16 or whatever it was, to remind myself that I really didn't want to give the satisfaction to that charity for the contribution."
He declines to name the charity.
Economix finds another example:
Clever as this economic motivational scheme might be, it’s not unique to Mr. Orszag.
SnūzNLūz, a Wi-Fi donation alarm clock, works the same way.
Every time you hit the snooze button while trying to nab a few extra winks, the clock donates a specified amount of your (real) money to “a nonprofit you hate.” The alarm clock comes with a selection of 6,200 nonprofits and charities from all over the political spectrum.
His epic caffeine intake concerned him until he solved the problem with typical Orszagian efficiency: he underwent genetic testing, confirmed that he could safely metabolize large amounts and happily moved on to the next worry.
In Washington, Mr. Orszag’s prowess with numbers has always meant opportunity. As an economist in the Clinton administration, he won the attention of Robert E. Rubin, then the Treasury secretary, by catching him in a math mistake.
Mr. Orszag still plays the geek, passing out propeller hats and jokingly referring to himself as “supernerd.” But nerds are socially inept, and he is anything but. He has worked in Washington on and off since he was 17 — he interned under Pete Rouse, now a senior adviser to the president — and he has intensely political instincts and aspirations.
Friends say his dinner parties are notable for the meticulously chosen wines and the senators who attend. (Mr. Orszag, a divorced father of two, is so cozy with the Capitol Hill crowd that Senator Ron Wyden and his wife, Nancy Bass Wyden, found him a girlfriend.)
And he has a history of transforming green-eyeshade jobs into broader assignments. When he led the Congressional Budget Office, starting in 2007, he became one of the most highly visible directors in its history. He published a well-regarded blog and testified constantly. The C.B.O. puts the official price tag on legislation, traditionally after it is written, but Mr. Orszag persuaded members of Congress and their staffs to consult with him during draft stages.
Both sides benefited: lawmakers were more likely to receive favorable rulings on cost, and Mr. Orszag became more policy partner than accountant.
Now he has stocked the White House’s budget office with advisers who aspire to shape policy across the administration. They include Cass R. Sunstein, a legal scholar close to Mr. Obama; Jeffrey Liebman, a campaign adviser; Dr. Ezekiel J. Emanuel, a heath care expert who is Rahm Emanuel’s brother; and Kenneth Baer, a Clinton administration speechwriter.
Mr. Orszag had a large role in the economic stimulus bill, taking charge of sorting the workable spending ideas from the impractical ones and helping negotiate its final passage on Capitol Hill.
Through that process, several colleagues say, he established his own direct line to the president, without the interference of Lawrence H. Summers, the former Treasury secretary who, as director of the National Economic Council, controls much of the flow of economic information and policy ideas to Mr. Obama.
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