Amity Shlaes: Sarah Palin with puffed up academic credentials

by divorced one like Bush

Professor Krugman has been having problems with a person named Amity Shlaes. Well, actually he’s having a problem more with what she is professing. Amity is talking about The Great One’s relationship to today’s sickly economy and prescribing a plan of treatment. Doctor Krugman is noting the errors in Amity’s examination findings and her plan of treatment. All I can say is, Paul, you’re arguing with Sarah Palin here. Amity’s not even a nurse, never mind a doctor. Let me expound.

Here is an article of Amity’s from 12/20/01 suggesting what is need to fix the sickly economy then:

The result of this labour flexibility is that the US has been able to sustain productivity growth at the outset of recession, something of which virtually no other developed economy is capable. Because US laws make it relatively easy to dismiss workers, companies do not have to waste negotiating time or cash on buying workers out of contracts.
When recovery does come, they will have more cash to invest. Because Ford can lose workers, it can also afford to bid for market share by selling cars interest-free. What is more, there will also be cash in the till with which to rehire workers.
There are lessons in this picture for all three countries. For the US, the message is: do not do anything to disturb the dynamism of the labour force. This means that the well intentioned plan to expand benefits for the unemployed in “economic growth and security” legislation is wrong-headed. For while nationally subsidised unemployment schemes may not target specific companies, they do throw sand into the gears of dynamic economies.
For Germany, or Japan, the message is: freer labour policies are crucial to future growth.
It is an old truth but worth remembering: “hire and fire” also means “fire to hire”. The best insurance for growth is creating a culture where workers believe that spring will come and, with it, a new job.

Hire and fire also means “fire to hire”? “You gotta be cruel to be kind in the right measure, cruel to be kind it’s a very good sign…”

In Amity Shlaes bio it is reported:

…2003, she spent several months at the American Academy in Berlin as the JP Morgan Fellow for finance and economy.

Here is the J.P. Morgan Fellows program:

The J.P. Morgan Fellows Program was established in 1996 to promote diversity in graduate business schools and in the Investment Bank. The Program provides half-tuition scholarships for up to 10 first-year MBA students at five of the United States’ top graduate business schools.

Now, this is very interesting in that wikipedia notes:

Shlaes graduated from Jonathan Edwards College, Yale University magna cum laude[1] with a bachelor’s degree in English in 1982 (with reference to Yale alumni directory)

Her bio does not mention this bit of education. It mentions nothing related to college at all! Nor does her bio at the Council on Foreign Relations
mention anything more than being an adjunct professor at NYU’s Stern School of Business. Yet, her career is full of editing jobs. So, is she teaching business? History?

Thus, we have a bachelor’s in english (obviously academically capable) receiving a fellowship for MBA students at the top business schools being used for a trip of “several months” to an academy for promoting German/American bonding. Via Source Watch:

The Academy’s web site states that it “presents an English-language public program at the Hans Arnhold Center [each semester]. The program is designed to present the work of fellows both to colleagues and interested members of the public …

The Academy’s fellowship is only one semester and “occasionally” a full year.

To be fair, at her book page it does state that her first book, the subject of which was Germany came about from her “studying and working in Germany starting in the fall of 1982.” It just does not describe the studying and working. Her bio at the CFR states she worked for the WSJ/Europe from 1986 to 1990 as the Editorial Features Editor.

The question: Is a bachelor’s in English with a lot of editing work experience editing editorials enough to get an MBA related fellowship to an Academy that gives English speaking lectures which then qualifies you to be a respected commentator of worldly proportions regarding today’s economic crap all put into an historical perspective? Not really, but…

I’ll accept a self taught historian, a self taught economist, but just as I’m a self taught guitarist of 40 years, I’m considered an amateur as should she be. There is nothing in Amity’s bio that suggests that all the honoraries she has received, both in job and awards, are related to anything more than the fact that she is very good with English language. She was an English major, she writes and reviews writing for God’s sake. Though, even in all of that writing there is no list of authorship within peer reviewed journals. None. So, how accurate is it to state at her bio page of the CFR this:

Expertise: Germany; Russia; history; economics; U.S. tax policy; relative competitiveness.

Is this expertise bestowed by peers in these subjects or is it expertise based on editing authorship of these subjects?

Professor Krugman, that’s it.

Here is thus the problem for Professor Krugman and anyone that is trying to correct the errors of Amity’s ignorance of her subject matter: You are arguing with Sarah Palin, the republican version of the valley girl voicing in a republican valspeak.
It’s the republican “brand”.

If there are poster children for the republican Stepford Wives
machine these 2 women are it. They are manufactured women for a specific male need.

Don’t believe me that we are dealing with 2 of the same? Then listen to the following with your eyes closed and tell me you do not hear Sarah in Amity’s speech, mind you, with more polish as one would expect from an English major. You do have to get to the points in the programs to where she is feeling comfortable.
Like this presentation with Charlie Rose. Go to 6:15 and start listening. Let it roll to the end of her answer.

There is this one which is what keyed me to this thought for today. I was eating breakfast yesterday morning with Cspan on. Catch her as she talks about Krugman at 2:50, but dig her talk regarding Hoover at 6:50. Can you handle that laissez-faire pronunciation? Did you catch the “aught not”?

Finally, this July 27, 2007 lecture, Foundation for Economic Education: Manipulating America. She starts speaking after the intro at 2:40. Listen for about 2 minutes.

Now here is Sarah’s acceptance speech.