Popping into my email inbox today, a press release titled:
Renowned Economist and Author Judy L. Shelton Joins the Independent Institute as Senior Fellow
The press release reads:
Oakland, CA—The Independent Institute is very pleased to announce that the renowned financial and monetary economist Judy L. Shelton has joined the organization as Senior Fellow. For decades, Dr. Shelton has been a leading advisor on domestic and international economic and financial issues to key officials at the White House, U.S. Congress and the Pentagon.
“We welcome Judy’s extensive expertise on the need for market-based money and finance along with major tax cuts and deregulation as essential to economic growth and job creation,” said David J. Theroux, Founder and President of the Independent Institute. “Her insightful work on the need to rein in the power of the Federal Reserve and restore sound finance is being accepted more widely each and every day.”
Former Chairman of the National Endowment for Democracy and former U.S. Director of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, she has frequently been asked to testify before the U.S. Senate Banking, Senate Foreign Relations, House Banking, House Foreign Affairs, and Joint Economic Committees. She also served as an economic advisor to the National Commission on Economic Growth and Tax Reform chaired by Jack Kemp, taught international finance as a professor at the DUXX Graduate School of Business, Monterrey, Mexico, has served on the board of directors for Hilton Hotels and Atlantic Coast Airlines, and was a founding member of the board of directors of Empower America.
Finally, Dr Shelton was an economic advisor to the 2016 presidential campaign of Donald J. Trump, who in February 2020 nominated her to the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System.
Dr. Shelton is the author of The Coming Soviet Crash: Gorbachev’s Desperate Pursuit of Credit in Western Financial Markets, Money Meltdown: Restoring Order to the Global Currency System, A Guide to Sound Money and Fixing the Dollar Now, and her popular articles have appeared in The Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, The Hill, and The Weekly Standard. She holds a Ph.D. in business administration, with an emphasis on finance and international economics, from the University of Utah.
Well, I would expect nothing less of the Independent Institute to hire the ever malleable and yet self-contradicting Dr. Shelton.
“she has frequently been asked to testify before the U.S. Senate Banking, Senate Foreign Relations, House Banking, House Foreign Affairs, and Joint Economic Committees.”
Do they invite any village idiot to testify before Congress? Notice how they make it sound like she is an eminent economist. Sort of like Lawrence Kudlow I guess. BTW there are a lot of consulting shops so shady they make Princeton Steve look respectable that have hired “chief economists” most of which are so incredibly incompetent at what they do, that they make Ms. Shelton look like a Nobel Prize winning economist.
One can disagree with Shelton’s policy stances, public statements, writings, etc… but there’s no doubt she’s an eminent economist. Debating the substance of her views is great but I certainly don’t see the need to just “hate on her” I. The fashion of this comment (and, honestly, the OP). There are Americans including policy makers of past, present, and future who respect her opinions… for better or for worse.
@ EConned
This comment is totally representative of you.
But don’t worry EConned, I never “hate on” Republican snowflakes. I know Menzie is currently constructing a “safe space” for you here. Make sure you always have an inhaler handy before clicking on the home page.
Did you want to give us a link to the list of economists recommending Shelton to become a member of the Fed board??
You shouldn’t hate on anyone. Why you mention “Republican snowflakes” is confusion because that isn’t on topic at all. Any (existent or nonexistent) list of economist recommending Shelton has zero to do with this specific topic at hand. I’ve not once suggested such.
@ Econned
If you can’t accept that you are a Republican snowflake that’s cool. Many men are late to come out of the closet, and I respect that people come to terms with themselves within their own time frame.
Eminent economist? Milton Friedman certainly was. I trust you know what he said about her absurd claim that fixed exchange rates were a necessary condition for free trade.
Look I have written why she has written as her eminence is right up there with Stephen Moore and Lawrence Kudlow.
Milton Friedman(RIP) is one of my favorite economists ever – his A Monetary History with Schwartz is one of my favorite books. His views, however, have NOTHING to do with her standing as an eminent economist (although I do wish that weren’t the case).
“His views, however, have NOTHING to do with her standing as an eminent economist”.
Seriously? What he said about her claims on the need for fixed exchange rates was pure ridicule. Thanks for confirming you have no clue what I was referring to.
i guess you and i have a different understanding of what an “eminent economist” would be.
Maybe.
pretty wishy washy, rick.
Let’s roll the tape back to 1998 when the Justice Department was pursuing what turned out to be a very compelling anti-trust campaign against Microsoft. The Independent Institute took Microsoft’s side with writings such as this:
https://www.independent.org/news/article.asp?id=354
They forgot to tell us that Microsoft paid them for such advocacy. BTW – this crew is also into climate change denial and wants to turn the clock back on health care policy to the days before Medicare. So yea – gold bug is their kind of monetary economist!
Well, now that she is definitely not going to be at the Fed, she can go back to calling for its power to be reduced.
Gold prices have been falling:
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/GOLDPMGBD228NLBM
A Shelton FED would be increasing the money supply just as that Biden fiscal stimulus kicks in. Of course Stephen Moore is a commodity rule type of guy and I guess the rise in oil and other metals prices would point in another direction. But both of them remind me of the Scare Crow in the Wizard of Oz. Follow the yellow brick road!
And I’m sure Barkley knows the politics behind the Wizard of Oz but for everyone else:
https://www.ipl.org/essay/Wizard-Of-Oz-Political-Allegory-PCVJATR4GYT
Big controversy even for Texas. Ken Paxton is their Attorney General and is also a big time Trump toadie. Now what was he texting during the armed invasion of the Capitol on 1/6? He is refusing to release his texts. I wonder why?
https://www.houstonchronicle.com/politics/texas/article/Texas-AG-Ken-Paxton-refuses-to-release-texts-16051378.php?utm_campaign=CMS%20Sharing%20Tools%20(Premium)&utm_source=t.co&utm_medium=referral
The OECD is trying to get all nations to sign this pledge to take steps to end Base Erosion and Profit Shifting:
http://www.oecd.org/tax/treaties/beps-mli-signatories-and-parties.pdf
95 have signed and 4 say they will sign.
One would think the US would be the first to sign this but to date they are not on the list. WTF?
I bet the Independent Institute is lobbying for Base Erosion and Profit Shifting – paid for of course by Microsoft, Facebook, Apple, Amazon, and Google!
She IS “renowned”.
And eminent. And has read Green Eggs and Ham up to the point where Ted Cruz stopped reading.
Judy’s Top 10 Quotes (even more bizarre than I imagined, e.g., end FDIC)
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/02/12/fed-nominee-judy-shelton-quotes/
“Some say she would bring fresh air to the central bank.”
Fresh air or comic relief? That is a really good list of her howlers especially #7 where she advocates the Mexican peso and the Canadian dollar be tied to the US dollar. Maybe she is an eminent comedian because she sucks as an economist.
Former Chairman of the National Endowment for Democracy…
[ NED is a methodically subversive, regime change organization. The point being that no matter the economics of a “Former Chairman” of NED, I can imagine no person with such a background becoming a member of the Federal Reserve Board. ]