Flashback: How Donald Luskin Earned His Title
Max Sawicky, on his Twitter feed, sends us to this classic piece from Donald Luskin
Believe me, if we raise taxes on hedge-fund managers we’ll get fewer hedge-fund managers. Today, with lots of hedge-fund managers trading all the time and keeping markets efficient, stocks are at record highs around the globe and markets are deeper, more liquid and less volatile. With fewer hedge-fund managers, markets would shrink, become more volatile and more costly, and tumble from their present highs.
The date on the piece is 20 July 2007. Just over three months later—pretty much exactly three years ago—the IB-sponsored MBS origination market effectively died, having taken much more value than was produced by the underlying property and placed it firmly into the pockets of traders and originators who knew that the present value they were claiming was—let us be nice—overoptimistic.
Does anyone wonder why Brad DeLong designated Donald Luskin “the Stupidest Man Alive Emeritus“?
I remember watching Kudlow largely to see Reich and a few others and groaning every time that tool was on. He and Larry just kept insisting, insisting, insisting that there was nothing at all to Subprime, that Goldilocks was under full steam, etc., etc. and everytime another shoe dropped, they only clung to their positions all the tighter.
That idiot cratered anyone’s portfolio who watched and thought he might actually have a clue. However, I think Dennis Kneale might be even more clueless. But it’s certainly a tossup.
Was it stupdity or merely spin?
Brad DeLong is utterly, completely and totally wrong about Luskin. Emeritus means retired.
Right wing tools taking investment advice from right wing tools like Luskin, Kudlow and Mankiw who tell them what they want to hear, is reallocating money from stupid ideologues to the rest of us. Almost a public service.