Corporate Executives, Bankers and Economists

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

The top economic people in the US government and Fed do big-time macroeconomics... monetary policy, gigangious fiscal policy, international trade policy.

What they do not do is "meet a payroll" or think up innovative products or tighten up the supply chain. They do not make or sell widgets or plot the hostile takeover of other makers of widgets.

The idea that shrewd business people have what it takes to be a top econ adviser, a treasury secretary or Fed member in our unique current economic circumstances is kind of stupid.

Before Obama appointed a woman whose name I forget the Federal Reserve Board of Governors last year that Board had only one economist: Ben Bernanke. Now they have two. The rest are bankers and business moguls and such.

And they are a menace! (At least one of them, and maybe two, thinks we need to raise interest rates.)

Economics is an imperfect discipline. A RW economist is worse than picking someone off the street. Even a good economist will *often* be wrong about things like monetary policy. But a businessman is almost guaranteed to be wrong about EVERYTHING in our current economic environment.

Our problems and their solutions are profoundly counter-intuitive right now. No successful steward of business is going to understand because if he ran his business they way we need to run the US economy his business would go out of business.

Unless his business happens to have the world's biggest sovereign currency.


(The most respected wizards of business typically fire everyone and sell off half the assets... not really an option for the US right now.)

[AnArmyVeteran]

1. Any kid who has played Monopoly could do a better job.