We get an inkling from a letter posted [PDF] yesterday, with “105 economists and conservative activists”…signing on
Observations:
- As advertised, not all the signatories are economists. Some have PhDs not in economics: Ed Fuelner has a PhD in polisci, James Huffman has law degrees, Merrill Matthews has a PhD in humanities, Brian Domitrovic a PhD in history, Alfredo Ortiz a PhD in development studies.
- Some have a PhD from a non-accredited university: Robert L. Bradley Jr., in political economy.
- Some have no advanced degree in economics: Steve Forbes, George Gilder.
- Some have no degree at all: Don Luskin.
- About 30 are emeritus/retired professors
- About 8 did their graduate study with James Buchanan and/or in the public choice school.
- Some Chief Economists have no advanced degree: John Williams of ALEC (and of course Don Luskin of Trend Macrolytics)
And some demographics:
- Seven are women
- Almost none are minority.
- About 38 are associated/last associated with institutions or organizations based in the South.
The letter is here.
A lot of either really obscure people and also obvious hacks like Laffer. But there are about a half dozen on there, not all that well known, but I know them and they have always seemed more or less reasonable, if generally conservative in their views. They are surprising to me.
With Cain likely to go down, it seems the push to please Trump with getting at least one of his hacks onto the Fed board is clearly in full swing.
I know a few of the actual economists. They should be ashamed of themselves but hey they have signed other Republican letters before when Luskin asked them to.
I was about to look at the letter to see if the Stupidest Man Alive (Luskin) and Mr. Flat Tax (Steve Forbes) signed this letter. Thanks for saving me the time. Can any village idiot sign this letter? It seems so.
Laffer signed it so I answered my own question – any village idiot can sign it. And of course there is Judy Shelton!
Zdanowicz of Florida International University signed it. Most people do not know he is but any one who has followed transfer pricing realizes he co-authored perhaps the dumbest papers the IRS even commissioned. Their approach was so absurd that even most IRS economists mocked it.
Oh yes – the finest in looney tune economics!
One the papers he co-authored with Simon Pak:
http://rybn.org/thegreatoffshore/THE%20GREAT%20OFFSHORE/1.ENCYCLOPEDIA/PAK,%20SIMON/Articles/US%20TRADE%20WITH%20THE%20WORLD.pdf
Their use of data is so idiotic that it would rival the sheer stupidity we routinely get from Princeton Steven and CoRev. Differences in the quality of goods does not matter? Differences in whether it is a retail v. a wholesale price does not matter? Using related party prices to measure market prices? Oh just toss in a bunch of junk and find an interquartile range. Beyond stupid. Just like Stephen Moore!
Strange list. I know four people on the list and was very surprised to see three of them listed there. I was not at all surprised by the fourth.
Luskin has been doing this since his 2004 letter that claimed Bush43’s fiscal policies were responsible and would lead to faster growth. Luskin was mad that 450 real economists had signed a letter to the contrary so he promised to get 451 economists who could “beat up” the 450 real economists. Yes – he said he wanted to beat them up. What a man!
Of course his stupid letter got only 250 people signing it and the list was even more dreadful than this cast. When it was pointed out that a lot of his 250 were not economists – Luskin went off in an internet rage. The man needs serious professional help.
Luskin only got 137 “economists” to sign his stupid letter supporting the Trump tax cut:
https://www.cnbc.com/2017/11/29/137-economists-support-gop-tax-reform-bill-in-open-letter-commentary.html
It seems the list of people who will prostitute themselves this way is getting smaller and smaller!
I earlier said Luskin got 250 economists to sign his “2004” letter but it seems this bizarre exercise was as early as 2003 per this classic from Brad DeLong:
http://www.j-bradford-delong.net/movable_type/2003_archives/000811.html
What’s interesting are the names NOT on the list. Usually you can count on the usual suspects of conservative but credible economists who always support a Republican president’s nominee. Where’s Ed Lazear? Where’s Marty Feldstein? Where’s Glenn Hubbard? Where’s Greg Mankiw? The dog that did not bark tells us a lot.
Some Republican economist letters go too far for Greg “I love rich people” Mankiw and Fast Eddie “his numbers are insane” Lazear. As far as Feldstein and Hubbard – the former is cooking up some new scheme to screw Social Security whereas the latter has to don another deposition regarding his defense of CountryWide.
@ 2slugbaits
You have made an excellent point there Sir, once again proving you are one of the better commenters on this blog. 5-star comment. In fact, I’m kinda pissed I didn’t think of it myself.
Of course, one could just say it’s the other side of the same coin of “Look at all the crappy names/credentials on this list” but you could have that AND the more respected sycophants I suppose, which is really who you listed there, the “more respected” sycophants.
Menzie, my dear old pal, you still don’t know me at all if you didn’t already guess that my personal “favorite” on the list (outside of Laffer and possibly Dick Armey) would be the man listed as the CEO of the “Job Creators” network.
Some choice quotes from Stephen Moore:
“Capitalism is a lot more important than democracy,” Moore said. “I’m not even a big believer in democracy.”
Moore called for Powell to resign for hiking interest rates.
He called for abolishing the Federal Reserve and returning to a gold standard
He has called for eliminating the Departments of Labor, Energy and Commerce, along with the IRS and the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau.
Moore advocated for eliminating the corporate and federal income taxes entirely, calling the 16th Amendment that created the income tax the “most evil” law passed in the 20th century.
He called for abolishing the minimum wage.
“There’s no bigger swamp in Washington than the Federal Reserve Board,” Moore said. “It’s filled with hundreds of economists who are worthless, who have the wrong model in their mind. They should all be, they should all be fired and they should be replaced by good economists.”
A lot of intellectual garbage indeed but pause and reflect on these two:
“Moore called for Powell to resign for hiking interest rates.
He called for abolishing the Federal Reserve and returning to a gold standard.”
Yea Trump wants lower interest rates even though we are near full employment and have that ill advised Trump fiscal irresponsibility. But put that aside – a gold standard would have depressed aggregate demand during the period after the Great Recession. But hey – Republicans wanted to screw the economy when Obama was President.
Moore is perhaps the worst thing possible for the FED. Which is exactly why Trump nominated this lying clown.
Sluggsy has it right.
On this I am with Greg Mankiw
“Where’s Ed Lazear? Where’s Marty Feldstein? Where’s Glenn Hubbard? Where’s Greg Mankiw? The dog that did not bark tells us a lot.”
The dogs that do not bark tells us that the lot of them are sniveling cowards. They are going to stick with their Racist in Chief as long as they get their precious tax cuts. None dares to risk drawing Trumps withering tweet fire.
Dick Armey was always extra careful not to get his hands dirty when playing in the sewage drain.
https://images.app.goo.gl/RbX2K6ogDrfwgQ7Z8
You ever notice how 9 times out of 10 when the head coach of a major NCAA basketball or football program gets charged with recruiting violations or taking/giving money that it’s usually the staff or the assistant coaches who are charged with the violations or crimes and the head coach almost never gets his hands dirty??
https://www.politico.com/blogs/under-the-radar/2009/08/ex-armey-aide-indicted-in-abramoff-probe-020811
Well, you’ll also notice how the oldest line in organized crime or white collar crime is “I hardly knew the guy” See donald trump I’m sure that’s what Dick Armey would (or did) say about Abramoff.
Of course, as anyone learned watching Republican Phil Gramm destroy both the SEC and the CFTC (where he slotted in his wife to lead it), if you want to break every ethics rule in the book and rob the federal government blind, you just get rid of anyone who wants to genuinely enforce the rules. You make those who enforce ethics and regulations into roadkill. Dick Armey was a master of that as well:
https://www.nytimes.com/1996/11/22/opinion/dick-armey-s-war-on-ethics.html
Well, if you can get Republican sycophants like Stephen Moore to artificially manipulate USA interest rates down to the ZLB to make your corrupt President the national hero for at least 2 more years and create an assets price bubble people will have to face the severe penalty for later, who cares?? And if a Democrat (similar to President Obama in 2008) has to clean up the carnage and the ruined lives later, all the better. When that Democrat takes you up to the 2nd floor economically, you just moan “Why the hell didn’t he take us up to the 4th floor??”. Because in this functionally illiterate ADD country, nobody remembers the Democrat President inherited an economy 2 floors below basement level anyway.
Notice how all these things keep happening day after day after day after day—-and this woman, Nancy Pelosi, can do nothing. I dare anyone to look into that woman’s eyes, and not see confusion and like she has no idea what to do next. Trump has now seen the Mueller Report before anyone in Congress or the public. No reaction.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jYYelyjitXo
Look into Pelosi’s eyes and truthfully tell me you don’t see confusion, trouble, and a woman who has no idea what to do next. Have we all scene this movie before from our older relatives???
“Oh…… I can’t remember what I came into this room for??”
“How did my car keys get in the refrigerator??”
“Why did I think that room was our bathroom??”
Look into that woman’s eyes—it’s Ronald Reagan 1987. The deer is in the middle of Interstate I-94 East facing oncoming traffic, and has no idea what is happening next.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6JTtI3D6lqk
Moses Herzog: I for one don’t see confusion. Ever since Trump’s ownership of the shutdown, seems like she’s been on top of things.
I agree with Menzie. No problem looking in her eyes and seeing someone extremely smart and competent.
While I did not make it explicit the absence of well known more or less semi-respectable GOP economists like Mankiw and Feldstein is that i identified the signers as either obvious hacks like Laffer (who actually is aan economist, but most of the other well known hacks are not or only marginally so), with the only people I consider to be semi-respectsable and thus surprising to see there being not well know people, whose names I have not mentioneed, with the vast majority of the signatories being essentially nobodies.
To Mose, I get that I am on your list of ungood commenters. But I have simply held you to ssome standards when you have gone wacko on your anti-smart women schtick, whose basis I do not understand. This going afteer Pelosi is an extreme example of it, with nobody at all remotely supporting this rank nonsense. What is your problem with this stuff? I mean really.
@ Barkley Junior
I was talking to 2slugbaits, not you, hence why the comment starts in bold @2slugbaits. I don’t expect a guy who misidentifies something uniformly distributed as a “skewed” distribution to notice that though. I put you in Pelosi’s group. Cleveland Clinic is where I would go if I was you and also had the money for it:
https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/9164-alzheimers-disease
I put you in the “just above moron” group, just so you’re not confused over your commenter classification code. That means below 2slugbaits but really nearer to PeakIgnorance. It’s good we have these interactions as it probably slows down your dementia. They also recommend board games with the grandkids, try that one out.
What a joke, Mose. You really are pathetic. How many times will you drag up your inability to understand that an even distribution on a genome has nothing to do with a skewed distribution on a population? How many times? You really do not get it that this sort of total stupidity simply reinforces that you are barely sane with your ranting claims that Pelosi is senile or stupid, something not a single person agrees with you on anywhere. I challenge you: name anybody anywhere on any position of the political spectrum, even some total nutcase, who agrees with you delusional position. You cannot and will not be able to. You are alone in this delusional frenzy.
BTW, playing board games with grandchildren is a great thing to do. If you ever have any, I highly recommend it, although, perhaps you do not have children as it may well be that no woman has wanted to hang around with you long enough even to produce children, much less grand ones. (Not nice of me, Mose, now I am lower than PT, but you asked for it.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oJ27xzEwQ3Q
This makes for an excellent list of patriotic centers of higher education. Nary an Ivy League school, nor a Wisconsin or University of California system school where the bulk of globalist regressives reside. Oxford’s sister, Harvard, being at the center of this cesspool. The admissions scandal is just the tip of the iceberg.
I guess quality education is Communism given your comments here. Go back to your community college and bone up on Home Economics!
Gag, this is a stupider remark than you usually come up with here, JBH. So which “patriotic” hole in the ground did you do graduate study in math and econometrics?
I saw a couple of reasonable names on the list, Earl Grinols (Baylor) and John Moorhouse (Wake, Emeritus). Even some former Fed names. Sadly, Marvin Goodfriend was turned down and Moore will likely be put on the board. I predict he’ll hate it and resign after a couple of years.
Moore might get a little frustrated when the other members of the FED keep snickering while Moore is speaking!
Bob,
I do not know either Grinols or Moorhouse. I agree Goodfriend (whom I am friends with, if not a “good friend,” oog) was highly qualified, as was, of course Peter Diamond, also turned down.
Since you named names, I shall also, some of these emerit, with one or two me being maybe less surprised:
Steve Rosefielde (UNC-Chapel Hill, the most surprising)
Paul Rubin (Emory)
Richard Cebula (Jacksonville U.)
Bill Butos (Trinity College)
Arthur Diamond (Nebraska-Omaha, not a relation of Peter to best of my knowledge)
Richard Vedder (Ohio U., maybe the least surprising)
Grinols is widely published – many with Steve Tyrnovsky https://scholar.google.com/scholar?start=10&q=%22earl+grinols%22&hl=en&as_sdt=0,10
John Moorhouse is a Northwestern Phd on my undergrad thesis committee and long-time friend.
My point in calling our names is the Rs will be able to get a bunch of well-credentialed economists to testify/write that Moore is ok. Others will disagree. Moore will be approved and the Fed staff will isolate him
Menzie decries that some signatories of that letter do not have PhDs in Economics.
Daniel Kahneman does not have a degree in Economics. It’s in Psychology, so I guess from now on, we should discount anything that Kahneman had and has to say.
Menzie decries that some have law degrees. I was born and raised in a small country, where the person who had the best knowledge of economics (probably ever), was a self-taught economist with a law degree.
Menzie decries that someone has a PhD in History. Niall Ferguson has a degree in Economic History (as far as I know), and he made it to much, much better institutions than Menzie.
Menzie decries that some do not have any degree at all. I guess we can discard anything that Thomas Edison did.
Menzie decries that some have a degree in PoliSci – I guess the University of Rochester can close the Wallis Institute of Political Economy, because PoliSci people cannot opine in things Economics anyway. Evidently, the cross-pollination between PoliSci and Economics did not reach Menzie’s desk yet.
Menzie mentions that several are emeritus/retired. I guess when many of the Nobel winners retire (or are currently retired) we should discount their opinions, because the “inkling” is not good.
Menzie decries James Buchanan and the School of Public Choice. The day Menzie makes an influential contribution to Economics and win the Nobel Prize, that will withstand the test of time, only then he will be able to decry Buchanan and the School of Public Choice. But Menzie never will, he will always be in the outer fringes, going through life like the rest of us, and will be forgotten when he is gone from the scene, like the rest of us.
Menzie mentions (but he puts it under the “inkling” label anyway) that “none are minority”. And that matters exactly why?
Menzie mentions (but again, under the “inkling” label) that many are institutions “in the South”. And that matters exactly why, to be pointed out?
Personally, I am on the fence whether Moore should be on the Fed or not; there are some good arguments in favor, there are good arguments against.
But decrying people and belittling their degrees, just because they do not agree with you, don’t know, makes me support Moore for the Fed, just for that reason alone.
Manfred: You are touchy, aren’t you. I didn’t decry any of those things. I merely labeled under “observations” these facts. That you take them as me decrying them indicates a degree of sensitivity that is telling.
I think you are misquoting; I wrote “Almost none are minority”.
Regarding the relevance of “the South”, see this post.
Niall Ferguson? Have you ever read anything he wrote about economics? If not Brad DeLong has read his intellectual garbage noting how in many ways this historian is dumber than even Donald Luskin. You took a lot of time to write this comment which is a shame and it was too stupid to even reply to.
https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1117800254726864902
Menzie mentions (but under the label “inkling” of what kind of signatories of the letter signed) that “almost none are minority”.
The Twitter link above from a couple of days ago: “Dear Antifa, The year is not 1960 and I am not Ruby Bridges. Your threats of violence do not scare me. I will be walking through the front door of UPENN today with my head held high. You racist white Democrats didn’t win back then—and you won’t win now.”
Thank God (can I say that here?) for Candace Owens.
Candace Owens now? Can you say One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest?!