Posted on 03/25/2019 9:38:37 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
In the Middle Ages, guilds held a monopoly on who could work in a whole range of trades, from blacksmith to brewer. The guilds set high hurdles for new entrants, or blocked them entirely, in order to limit competition.
France’s minister of finances Jean-Baptiste Colbert once ordered all French crafts to form guilds “so as to compose by this means a group and organization of capable persons, and close the doors to the ignorant.” But the great free-market economist Adam Smith held a different view of guilds: He called them “a conspiracy against the public.”
The Washington policy guild often operates like a medieval guild in its effort to screen out “ignorant” heretics who hold disruptive ideas. Just look at their hysterical overreaction to President Trump’s appointment of economist Stephen Moore to the Federal Reserve Board, whose primary role is setting the level of interest rates in the economy.
Moore has been a senior economist on the Congressional Joint Economic Committee, served as an economist at the Heritage Foundation, and been a member of the editorial board of the Wall Street Journal, where I got to know him well. He is known for his sunny disposition and ability to work with others.
But to Beltway guild members, he is a member of the hated school of supply-side economics, which holds that economic incentives matter a great deal. Supply-siders assert that tax cuts and sound fiscal policy can help boost the U.S. economy out of the economic doldrums it fell into after the recession of 2008. The supply-side tax cuts of the Reagan administration fueled the booming economy of the 1980s. Trump’s tax cuts have helped ignite a surge in jobs and wages accompanied by a stable, strong dollar.
But to Washington’s policy guild, this record is all the more reason to oppose and belittle Moore. Because Moore has been an architect of President Trump’s policies and authored a book called “Trumponomics,” he can’t be expected to maintain the independence of the Fed, his critics say. He has backed Trump’s 2016 campaign call for the establishment of a monetary commission to look under the Fed’s hood. Yet another sin is that he has called for the Fed to follow a “price rule” that tracks oil and other commodities in setting interest rates. In many ways, it would resemble the rule that Fed chairman Paul Volcker used to tame inflation in the Reagan era. The Fed prefers its own measuring system, which has often led to its own mistakes — such as in the run-up to the 2008 recession. The Fed often makes jarring midcourse corrections: Last December, it planned on raising interest rates twice during 2019. On March 20, the Fed decided there would be no interest hikes at all.
Moore’s response: “Keep the rules stable over time, and you’ll have a stable price system.”
Perhaps worst of all in the eyes of Beltway guild members is that Moore would be an “independent” voice challenging the Fed bureaucracy. He has certainly not kowtowed to it in the past, as so many bankers have. “Donald Trump wanted to drain the swamp. The Fed is the swamp,” Moore has said.
The fear and loathing expressed about Moore is often expressed in ad hominem terms. To journalist Jonathan Chait, writing in New York magazine, Moore is a “famous idiot.” Economist Steven Taylor sneers that “by all appearances, Moore opposes mainstream fiscal theories because he simply doesn’t understand them.” Taylor concludes that Moore “is not an economist, he is an ideologue and a pundit,” because he is not “a trained academic economist” with a Ph.D. in the field.
There we see the guild mentality in full. It turns out that current Fed chairman Jerome Powell also lacks a Ph.D. in economics, and for most of the Fed’s history its chairs were not economists. But Powell is a favorite of the Beltway guild system and so is immune to such criticism.
The notion that having Moore on the Federal Reserve Board will make the Fed recklessly follow Donald Trump’s whims is preposterous. All key Fed decisions are made by a committee of up to twelve members — the seven governors nominated by the White House and five heads of regional Fed banks. Moore would be one voice at the table.
What’s really astonishing about the hysterical reaction to Moore’s appointment to the Fed is how much it reveals the intellectual insecurity and clannishness at the heart of the Washington policy community. Why else would they be so scared of one man challenging their preconceived wisdom?
Flack is always heaviest over the target
Moore is a decent man.
There’s no reason he can’t be there.
RE: Moore is a decent man.
There’s no reason he can’t be there.
______________________
I don’t think decency is the issue. It is COMPETENCY.
“The Fed prefers its own measuring system, which has often led to its own mistakes — such as in the run-up to the 2008 recession.”
A series of mistakes brought to us by under the leadership of Alan Greenspan, who was first appointed by Ronald Reagan.
Greenspan’s policy of near-zero interest rates after 9-11-2001 provided fuel for the mortgage bubble, driving bond investors to look for yield in the subprime world.
Only two of the current five board members have doctorates in Economics. It's not a requirement.
In many ways, it would resemble the rule that Fed chairman Paul Volcker used to tame inflation in the Reagan era.
...
Volcker didn’t tame inflation, Reagan did with his pro growth policies, especially deregulation.
Volcker is a big time Democrat who caused a really bad recession.
Moore has a Master’s Economics.
Moore is completely qualified for that group of A$$-hats.
I hope Moore is a lot better at monetary policy than the author of the article.
Well, Stephen Moore He received a B.A. in Economics from the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign and an M.A. from George Mason University in economics.
Let it not be said that he is not trained as an economist.
And BTW, George Mason University is the school where Prof. Walter Williams taught economics. It is well known for championing the free markets.
Nobel Prize winner for Economics, James Buchanan was a faculty member of the school.
RE: I hope Moore is a lot better at monetary policy than the author of the article.
What is it about this article that you disagree with ?
At one time GMU had 3 of the top economists in the country!
Anybody who praises Volcker is praising the establishment and the fake claim that economic growth causes inflation.
Many, many years ago, an Economist associated with Stanford University made an interesting, but largely true statement:
“The only purpose of economic forecasting is to lend credibility to astrology.”
Moore is an open border hack...tied up with Norquist and Conda...keep him AWAY from immigration policy!
But Moore openly supports Trump’s border wall. So, that’s a plus for him.
“But Moore openly supports Trump’s border wall. So, that’s a plus for him.”
I had not heard that....hopefully he has changed. He supported every lopsided amnesty that came along before.
READ THE ARTICLE HE AUTHORED HERE:
https://www.creators.com/read/stephen-moore/01/19/democrats-for-border-security
Thank you, SeekAndFind.
“Moore is an open border hack.”
We were surprised to be on the same cruise as the Media Research Center annual cruise a couple years ago. We ran in to Stephen Moore at breakfast the first day and he invited us to one of the forums. (I sat next to Allen West!!) Anyhow, we heard NOTHING from Moore that would make us believe he was for open borders. It seemed that he supports Trump on basically everything.
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