Alternative Economists Who President Obama should seek advice from

[Better Believe It]

Alternative Economists
by Ann Pettifor
New Economist, Author, Debtonation - The Coming First World Debt Crisis
March 27, 2009


In my last post I promised a list of economists and financial experts that President Obama could usefully call upon to challenge the advice he gets from Larry Summers, Tim Geithner et al.

Thanks in part to the Huff Po, we have been hearing from many liberal economists that appear not to be part of the White House magic circle, namely: Paul Krugman; Dean Baker of CEPR; Prof. Joseph Stiglitz; Simon Johnson of MIT, Prof. Jeffrey Sachs; Prof. James Galbraith; Prof. Nouriel Roubini and Prof. Kenneth Rogoff.

But there are many more he could call upon. I would strongly suggest that he seeks the advice of that sage of Steady State Economics, Prof. Herman Daly of the University of Maryland. Prof. Daly is a 'new economist'; advised the World Bank in the 1980s, and has pioneered ecological economics. His time has come.

I strongly recommend that the President set aside time on his visit to London next week to meet up with Graham Turner a former City of London economist.

In preparing my list it rapidly became clear: as far as diversity goes, economics, banking and finance still looks very much like America in the 1950s. The journal of Blacks in Higher Education undertook a survey back in 1994 and found 11 black economists at the nation's 30 highest-ranked universities. By 2006, this had risen to a miserly 13. I strongly advise the President to include all 13 in his deliberations. The broader the spectrum of advice, the better.

Then he should consult the woman who, way back in 1997, took on Greenspan, Summers and Rubin over the need to regulate derivatives. The woman who was roundly beaten by that triumvirate: Brooksley E. Born of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.

Again the President might take the opportunity of his London trip to meet up with Prof. Victoria Chick Emeritus Professor of Economics, University of London. Next I nominate Carmen M. Reinhart, Professor of Economics at the Department of Economics at the University of Maryland. And finally, Professor Sakiko Fukuda-Parr, Professor of International Affairs at the New School, New York.

Please read the complete article at:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ann-pettifor/challenging-the-dogma-of_b_180098.html

[CBR]

1. I recommend Herman Daly... nt

[BlooInBloo]

2. In general, the people who got it RIGHT.

[dpbrown]

3. Obama is not allowed by the Oligarchs to actually fix the system

They want a return to feudalism.

[ashling]

4. Or, in the grammatically correct alternative:

Alternative Economists from whom President Obama should seek advice

[truedelphi]

8. Now now, there. On the other hand

IF you hadn't corrected this, I would have compulsively gnawed on my lil finger nails while falling asleep.

[Political Heretic]

5. BIG YES ON BROOKSLEY E. BORN!

Talk about someone who earned a seat at the table by being right when it was completely unpopular...

[depakid]

6. Galbraith suggested a guy named William K. Black

A white-collar criminologist and former financial regulator, who was one of the first guys to recognize and then deal with the Savins & Loan debacle.

Some of his writing:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/william-k-black/why-is-geithner-continuin_b_169234.html

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/william-k-black/the-two-documents-everyon_b_169813.html

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20081006/galbraith_black

[chimpymustgo]

12. More from Black: Why Is Geithner Continuing Paulson's Policy of Violating the Law?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/william-k-black/why-is-ge...

Why Is Geithner Continuing Paulson's Policy of Violating the Law?

Whatever happened to the law (Title 12, Sec. 1831o) mandating that banking regulators take "prompt corrective action" to resolve any troubled bank? The law mandates that the administration place troubled banks, well before they become insolvent, in receivership, appoint competent managers, and restrain senior executive compensation (i.e., no bonuses and no raises may be paid to them). The law does not provide that the taxpayers are to bail out troubled banks. Treasury Secretary Paulson and other senior Bush financial regulators flouted the law. (The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) and the Office of Thrift Supervision (OTS) are both bureaus within Treasury.) The Bush administration wanted to cover up the depth of the financial crisis that its policies had caused.

Mr. Geithner, as President of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York since October 2003, was one of those senior regulators who failed to take any effective regulatory action to prevent the crisis, but instead covered up its depth. He was supposed to regulate many of the largest bank holding companies in the United States. Far too many of these institutions are now deeply insolvent because the banks they own are deeply insolvent. The law mandated that Geithner and his colleagues place troubled banks in receivership long before they became insolvent. Why are the banking regulators, particularly Treasury Secretary Geithner, continuing to disobey the law?

We need a Pecora investigation

We can understand now why the administration and so many committee chairs are virulently opposed to the single most essential step we need to take to diminish future crises -- a modern Pecora investigation. Pecora was the prosecutor hired by the Senate banking committee to investigate the misconduct that helped cause the Great Depression. You must vigilantly study past failures to learn causation and to enact remedies. If we were dealing with a crisis of airplane crashes and someone opposed studying the causes of the failures we would (correctly) label him a lunatic. Congress largely stopped conducting meaningful oversight hearings of financial regulation during the Bush administration. The results were horrific. It appears that only intense public pressure will suffice to overcome congressional and administration resistance to a Pecora investigation. I hope readers will add their voices to this call.

The financial cost of Paulson's and Geithner's flouting of the law

- snip -

[mtnchk]

7. It would be great if this would happen but I'm afraid the Chicago Boys

and the Shock Doctrine are alive and well with business as usual even though we elected someone who was trying to change things. I think he believes we can't piss off the big guys because we need them to get our economy started and we don't have time to re-invent ourselves but I think it's suicide if we keep on this old path. We DO need to re-invent ourselves and the world with the world as our partner. We need to engage the people we have alienated as well as reinvent an economic system with a little homeostasis- the checks and balances that keep an organism healthy.

[truedelphi]

9. Will somebody please get this interview to Obama!!

It contains all the wisdom and defenses he would need to do the right thing.

http://tinyurl.com/dxowh8

[Political Tiger]

10. Or he could seek advice from the many economists here on DU

I mean, there's so many of them! I never knew half the members of DU were economists.......
:sarcasm:

[notesdev]

11. Heck, he'd get better advice from a blindfolded dart-throwing monkey

Just put up the "Dartboard 'O Economic Policy Choices" and have him go to town. Guaranteed to outperform his existing economic team.

[Better Believe It]

13. DU'ers don't represent the Wall Street crooks.

[Odin2005]

14. IMO he should read up on Joseph Schumpeter.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Schumpeter

I disagree with some of his ideas (mainly because of he being influenced by the Austrian School, which I consider pseudoscience), but many of his ideas are quite interesting.