Top Eonomist Shwartz says Beranke & Fed messed up big time
Started by Riversider
over 16 years ago
Posts: 13572
Member since: Apr 2009
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http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/26/opinion/26schwartz.html?ref=opinion AS Federal Reserve chairman, Ben Bernanke has committed serious sins of commission and omission — and for those many sins, he does not deserve reappointment. Let’s move on to the sins of omission. After 2007, the Federal Reserve clearly observed that the mortgage loan industry was being transformed into an issuer of securities... [more]
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/26/opinion/26schwartz.html?ref=opinion
AS Federal Reserve chairman, Ben Bernanke has committed serious sins of commission and omission — and for those many sins, he does not deserve reappointment.
Let’s move on to the sins of omission. After 2007, the Federal Reserve clearly observed that the mortgage loan industry was being transformed into an issuer of securities backed by a pool of mortgages of varying quality. Yet the Fed at no point clearly warned investors that these new instruments were difficult to price. (These securities were backed by everything from top-quality mortgages to subprime ones, and it was difficult to determine what value to assign to different mortgages.)
The Fed is the manager of markets. There is thus every reason to expect that it would see the problems that these new instruments were likely to create for normal transactions, and speak up about them.
The Fed delivered plenty of rhetoric about the importance of transparency, yet failed to articulate its own goals. The market was thus bewildered when the Fed rescued certain firms and not others. Mr. Bernanke should have explained the principles behind these decisions. The market could not understand why the Fed rescued Bear Stearns and then permitted Lehman Brothers to die.
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Response by peirsol
over 16 years ago
Posts: 1
Member since: Jul 2009
Holy crap! Great post Riverside. I can't believe that two economists disagree. Wow. Good find.
Anna Jacobson Schwartz is “a leading authority on economic history, monetary economics, international monetary systems, and monetary statistics,” according to the citation honoring her as a Distinguished Fellow of the American Economic Association (AEA) in 1993. Her voluminous publications in these areas have so far spanned a period of more than fifty years.
After graduation from Barnard College and beginning graduate study at the Graduate Faculties of Columbia University, from which she received her M.A. in 1935 and her Ph.D. in 1964, Schwartz worked briefly at the U.S. Department of Agriculture in 1936 and then at the Columbia University Social Science Research Council, from 1936 to 1941. She then joined the National Bureau of Economic Research, where she has done most of her research and writing and where she remains a research associate. She has had a number of part-time academic associations, including Baruch, Brooklyn, and Hunter College of the City University of New York and New York University, and has been adjunct professor of economics at the Graduate School and University Center of the City University of New York since 1986. One unusual interlude in her career occurred in 1981–1982, when she was staff director of the U.S. Gold Commission, a group of mostly political appointees charged with making recommendations on the future role of gold in the American monetary system.
Schwartz initially made her reputation in the field of quantitative economic history. That was the subject of her first journal article, in 1940, of a two-volume work coauthored with Arthur D. Gayer and Walt W. Rostow, published in 1953, and many papers since then. She is most widely known for three monumental books on American and British monetary history, coauthored with Milton Friedman. These books were described in the AEA citation as “the major force in reorienting the profession’s thinking … about the importance of the stock of money in cyclical fluctuations,” to the point where she was described by a critic as “the high priestess of monetarism.” A book consisting of appraisals of her work, edited by Michael D. Bordo, was published in 1989.
Schwartz's criticism is unpleasant to hear for Bernanke, who has long admired both her and Friedman. He has said that reading Monetary History "hooked" him on monetary economics when he was an MIT student
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Response by jimandivana
over 16 years ago
Posts: 2
Member since: Jul 2009
"Schwartz's criticism is unpleasant to hear for Bernanke, who has long admired both her and Friedman. He has said that reading Monetary History "hooked" him on monetary economics when he was an MIT student"
How many years ago was he an MIT student? Did Schwartz ever have any responsibility to the U.S. and to solving a great crisis in our economy? Did Schwartz ever have a public watching her moves? A President to answer to (I know it isn't a direct line, but re-appointment is coming up). How old is Schwartz these days? Is she at her prime?
WTF is the point of this Riversider? Who the heck are you? I can find people who criticize anyone out there.
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Response by columbiacounty
over 16 years ago
Posts: 12708
Member since: Jan 2009
he/she is an anonymous poster on an internet forum just like you. aren't you doing exactly what you are criticizing?
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Response by jimandivana
over 16 years ago
Posts: 2
Member since: Jul 2009
Not quite columbiacounty. I'm not criticizing a known public figure with nonsense. I'm criticizing an anonymous person ... that "he/she" is anonymous means that I'm less criticizing a person rather than an argument.
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Response by falcogold1
over 16 years ago
Posts: 4159
Member since: Sep 2008
Let's see...
A post of a NYT op-ed piece about an important upcoming economic event.
A post explaining the credentials of the writer.
References to the original post.
I suspect this is done to inform and stmulate debate.
jim, you started off on the right foot and then tripped over you own lack of intelect the second you attacked the poster. Does riverside have some magical power over you that 'makes' you read these posts? Looks to me like you are just another bulls-it rock thrower without the ability to argue with you brain.
thanks for you insight...I was running out of TP.
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Response by Riversider
over 16 years ago
Posts: 13572
Member since: Apr 2009
How many years ago was he an MIT student? Did Schwartz ever have any responsibility to the U.S. and to solving a great crisis in our economy? Did Schwartz ever have a public watching her moves? A President to answer to (I know it isn't a direct line, but re-appointment is coming up). How old is Schwartz these days? Is she at her prime?
Sharp as a tack. Do you know who she is? She's ten times the economist Roubini these days examines supply and demand economics of dance clubs.
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Response by Riversider
over 16 years ago
Posts: 13572
Member since: Apr 2009
The remarks below are excerpted from a recent interview by Morningstar’s Bill Bergman with Walker Todd, Martin Mayer, and Edward Kane on the current financial situation. In addition to being an AIER Research Fellow, Walker Todd directs AIER’s Summer Fellowship Program. Martin Mayer and Edward Kane are also familiar faces at AIER. They have both participated in AIER conferences, given lectures concerning their research, and will present seminars in the 2009 Summer Fellowship Program.
“The notion that the nation’s currency is backed by a bunch of junk bonds and CDOs and such things on the books of the Federal Reserve District Banks is pretty scary.”
– Martin Mayer, noted financial journalist, Brookings Institution scholar, and the author of more than 30 books on financial market issues
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Response by julia
over 16 years ago
Posts: 2841
Member since: Feb 2007
what makes someone a top economist...
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Response by Riversider
over 16 years ago
Posts: 13572
Member since: Apr 2009
In her case she wrote a very influential work.
She is most famous for her collaboration with Milton Friedman on A Monetary History of the United States, 1867-1960 which hypothesized that changes in monetary policy have large effects on the economy. In particular, they lay a large portion of the blame for the Great Depression at the door of the Federal Reserve.
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Holy crap! Great post Riverside. I can't believe that two economists disagree. Wow. Good find.
http://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/schwartz-anna-jacobson
Anna Jacobson Schwartz is “a leading authority on economic history, monetary economics, international monetary systems, and monetary statistics,” according to the citation honoring her as a Distinguished Fellow of the American Economic Association (AEA) in 1993. Her voluminous publications in these areas have so far spanned a period of more than fifty years.
After graduation from Barnard College and beginning graduate study at the Graduate Faculties of Columbia University, from which she received her M.A. in 1935 and her Ph.D. in 1964, Schwartz worked briefly at the U.S. Department of Agriculture in 1936 and then at the Columbia University Social Science Research Council, from 1936 to 1941. She then joined the National Bureau of Economic Research, where she has done most of her research and writing and where she remains a research associate. She has had a number of part-time academic associations, including Baruch, Brooklyn, and Hunter College of the City University of New York and New York University, and has been adjunct professor of economics at the Graduate School and University Center of the City University of New York since 1986. One unusual interlude in her career occurred in 1981–1982, when she was staff director of the U.S. Gold Commission, a group of mostly political appointees charged with making recommendations on the future role of gold in the American monetary system.
Schwartz initially made her reputation in the field of quantitative economic history. That was the subject of her first journal article, in 1940, of a two-volume work coauthored with Arthur D. Gayer and Walt W. Rostow, published in 1953, and many papers since then. She is most widely known for three monumental books on American and British monetary history, coauthored with Milton Friedman. These books were described in the AEA citation as “the major force in reorienting the profession’s thinking … about the importance of the stock of money in cyclical fluctuations,” to the point where she was described by a critic as “the high priestess of monetarism.” A book consisting of appraisals of her work, edited by Michael D. Bordo, was published in 1989.
BIG BUSINESS + BIG GOVERNMENT = BIG TROUBLE
http://mjperry.blogspot.com/2009/06/blog-post_04.html
http://www.newsweek.com/id/207218
Schwartz's criticism is unpleasant to hear for Bernanke, who has long admired both her and Friedman. He has said that reading Monetary History "hooked" him on monetary economics when he was an MIT student
"Schwartz's criticism is unpleasant to hear for Bernanke, who has long admired both her and Friedman. He has said that reading Monetary History "hooked" him on monetary economics when he was an MIT student"
How many years ago was he an MIT student? Did Schwartz ever have any responsibility to the U.S. and to solving a great crisis in our economy? Did Schwartz ever have a public watching her moves? A President to answer to (I know it isn't a direct line, but re-appointment is coming up). How old is Schwartz these days? Is she at her prime?
WTF is the point of this Riversider? Who the heck are you? I can find people who criticize anyone out there.
he/she is an anonymous poster on an internet forum just like you. aren't you doing exactly what you are criticizing?
Not quite columbiacounty. I'm not criticizing a known public figure with nonsense. I'm criticizing an anonymous person ... that "he/she" is anonymous means that I'm less criticizing a person rather than an argument.
Let's see...
A post of a NYT op-ed piece about an important upcoming economic event.
A post explaining the credentials of the writer.
References to the original post.
I suspect this is done to inform and stmulate debate.
jim, you started off on the right foot and then tripped over you own lack of intelect the second you attacked the poster. Does riverside have some magical power over you that 'makes' you read these posts? Looks to me like you are just another bulls-it rock thrower without the ability to argue with you brain.
thanks for you insight...I was running out of TP.
How many years ago was he an MIT student? Did Schwartz ever have any responsibility to the U.S. and to solving a great crisis in our economy? Did Schwartz ever have a public watching her moves? A President to answer to (I know it isn't a direct line, but re-appointment is coming up). How old is Schwartz these days? Is she at her prime?
Sharp as a tack. Do you know who she is? She's ten times the economist Roubini these days examines supply and demand economics of dance clubs.
The remarks below are excerpted from a recent interview by Morningstar’s Bill Bergman with Walker Todd, Martin Mayer, and Edward Kane on the current financial situation. In addition to being an AIER Research Fellow, Walker Todd directs AIER’s Summer Fellowship Program. Martin Mayer and Edward Kane are also familiar faces at AIER. They have both participated in AIER conferences, given lectures concerning their research, and will present seminars in the 2009 Summer Fellowship Program.
“The notion that the nation’s currency is backed by a bunch of junk bonds and CDOs and such things on the books of the Federal Reserve District Banks is pretty scary.”
– Martin Mayer, noted financial journalist, Brookings Institution scholar, and the author of more than 30 books on financial market issues
what makes someone a top economist...
In her case she wrote a very influential work.
She is most famous for her collaboration with Milton Friedman on A Monetary History of the United States, 1867-1960 which hypothesized that changes in monetary policy have large effects on the economy. In particular, they lay a large portion of the blame for the Great Depression at the door of the Federal Reserve.