A lot of the criticisms of putting the twin village idiots known as Herman Cain and Stephen Moore on the FED assert that they are gold bugs. Kate Riga watched CNN when Erin Burnett interviewed Stephen Moore on this allegation:
Stephen Moore tries to flip-flop on the gold standard — but Erin Burnett is prepared and armed with a montage of his past statements
Watch and enjoy! Now Moore did say he would prefer targeting an index of commodity prices, which led me to FRED and its Global Price Index of All Commodities. Moore has not be all that specific how his commodity price target would work but let’s speculate his index would be a lot like this one. Suppose the FED targeted commodity prices to be where they were in 2005 since this index is based where it would equal 100 in 2005. Just imagine how a Moore monetary policy would have worked say during the booming 1990’s. Commodity prices were low so his policy prescription would have been massively expansionary during a booming economy. For much of the period from 2007 to 2014, we would have had a contractionary monetary policy even as U.S. aggregate demand was often incredibly weak. In other words, his commodity price based monetary policy would be about as destabilizing as was monetary policy under the gold standard.
There are lots of different specific reasons Stephen Moore is a bad choice for the Fed, but I have not seen any good ones. But by showing reasons why he shouldn’t be confirmed, we’re almost conceding that he is a reasonable candidate. As single arguments against are brought up, they can be word-saladed away as somehow not that important. They are a symptom of the fact that he has no qualifications that would make him a reasonable pick for this job.
For someone like this, the burden of proof should be flipped. Before we have to give reasons why not them, a real defense of why them should be given.
Jimbo:
Reasons for doing something have never been the strong suit of the Republican Senate much less Herr Trump now in possession of a German ancestry. McConnell will pass him through and all the questioning-doubting-Thomas Republicans will all fall into line and vote in accordance to the Republican politics over country. Mr. Moore has a master of arts degree in economics from George Mason University in Virginia. Is not George Mason a reputable accredited school and not just a paper degree printer? How does he compare to other members?
Would he suggest a further loosening of banking regulations like Greenspan did with GS in 1987 which started the demise of GS until its repeal in 2000(?) and changes to the National Banking Act allowing Citibank to become Citigroup.
Perhaps, he might take the Fed Rate as high as Greenspan did pre-2001 and subsequently cut it to prevent a far worse recession. A bit late, perhaps?
Did Greenspan push for the market Derivative Clearing Board for Wall Street which came out of the death of GS. Nope, he expected the market to govern itself in a rational fashion to protect its interests.
And the Federal Reserve Board went right along with Greenspan except Volcker who voted against the initial 5% for depository banks to gamble on Wall Street.
Does having a PhD allow a person to think rationally? We have so many today with PhDs who appear to have failed in the past. Will we be worse off with just a MA, from an accredited school, on the Fed?
Jimbo,
He was chief economist for the Heritage Foundation.”
Meaningless title, but more than enough for the GOP.
Maybe the real issue is about the term “economist”. What exactly does it mean? Is a BS in Economics good enough? A Masters? Should we retain that title only for PHDs? Having spent the better part of my adult life following economics, it is clear to me that just about anyone can call themselves an economist these days. Hell, I am an economist, I have opinions about economics and lack only a public forum to express them and backers to keep me employed while spewing my own half baked ideas. Are not all of us that read this blog economists now? Run, maybe you and your real economists colleagues here can start defining it in the hope that one day, we can all separate the wheat from the chaff.
Woolley:
The author of this post is an economist along with Barkley, Peter, Spencer, Robert, etc. Sandwichman is good for a question also. Just be on topic with Sandwchman.
I like reading their words as it is always a learning experience. Next week I am down to Loyola again and will talk with my former Econ Prof Tassos. We are close in age. He is an economist, somewhat conservative, and I am just a simple manufacturing person who reads a lot and fixes things. Mankiw labels Moore’s support (Moore’s book) of the Laffer Curve as little more than “rah-rah partisan.” Make no mistake the appointment of Moore is partisan. Mankiw is not what I would call progressive and perhaps others would disagree with me. I doubt it.
Mercatus Center is little more than a cancerous growth on a University, a not so good one as my conservative Econ Prof. suggested. Mercatus bought themselves into Western Carolina University with $2 million in donations and a new economics center “Center for the Study of Free Enterprise.” Dr. Edward Lopez, director of the controversial new Center for the Study of Free Market Enterprise, is a big fan of Ayn Rand and sponsors the reading of her books by economics students. It is a good story until you find out Ayn took Medicare to care for her cancer. https://www.bpr.org/post/koch-controversy-resurfaces-wcu-amid-new-research#stream/0 Mercautus and the Koch Brothers are a cancerous tumor on education and must be cut away from it in order to preserve its freedom.
I suspect Moore is of the same ilk.
I have identified them, read them. If I disagree, I will politely say so.
The reason Trump picked Moore is simple – he co-authored this:
Trumponomics: Inside the America First Plan to Revive Our Economy
Of course Greg Mankiw’s review labeled this nonsensical writing as “Rah Rah economics”.
All praise Herr Leader!
pgl:
I read the same also. Mankiw was not too kind to Moore a bit like when you reviewed one of the other fools at George Mason about Baumol’s Cost Disease.
Per Greenspan’s education, he waited until 1977 to get his Ph.D, from New York University. His dissertation – it was sort of a secret for a while but reporters finally got a copy in 2008:
https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB120917419049046805
On my take down of Mark Perry asking him to consider Baumol’s cost disease, I had a follow-up that praised a comment by one Paul Wynn:
http://econospeak.blogspot.com/2018/02/baumol-cost-disease-and-relative-prices.html
Run,
Perhaps what I tried to say was misunderstood. I consider the folks that write here to be exceptional economists. My point was how the public perceives or is led to believe that people like Moore are indeed economists one should consider in the same light as more distinguished economists. By that I mean comparing a Rogoff or Stiglitz with a Laffer or Moore. It seems to me that one can buy the economist one needs these days. The true thought leaders are mostly absent from our media and public sphere which is a true shame. I point many people to this site because I think this and a few other sites are where one can find out what is really going on sans the partisan spins.
Woolley:
I have known you for a long time. My concern was not for what you understood. Remember what I said? I fix things. I am bad at theory in the Macro sense and delve in the Micro sense. That is besides the point. This was an informal way of introduction to you. Another person is going to arrive here soon who writes on business law. that person is a good read too. I have a new post coming out on Women’s healthcare which I was asked to write These take me forever as I have to read and determine how to keep it to 2000 words. It is pretty goo, I think.