Trump's Fed Appointments - Cain, Moore and Others Failed Attempts

[Gustaf]

I didn't see a thread on this, pardon if I missed it. After Herman Cain (lol) had to withdraw Trump proposed Stephen Moore, founder of the Club for Growth and columnist/commentator on economic issues.

I was Reading this interview with Moore: https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/policy/economy/trump-pick-stephen-moore-lays-out-his-vision-for-the-federal-reserve

Now, I'm not at all specialized in monetary policy but...this guy has no idea about it. As in, he would embarass himself at an intermediate undergrad macro course. Do conservatives genuinely Believe these people understand any economics? Luckily he withdrew, but the Fed kind of matters for the economy. I find it worrying if Trump gets to fill it with complete idiots.

[136or142]

I didn't see a thread on this, pardon if I missed it. After Herman Cain (lol) had to withdraw Trump proposed Stephen Moore, founder of the Club for Growth and columnist/commentator on economic issues.

I was Reading this interview with Moore: https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/policy/economy/trump-pick-stephen-moore-lays-out-his-vision-for-the-federal-reserve

Now, I'm not at all specialized in monetary policy but...this guy has no idea about it. As in, he would embarass himself at an intermediate undergrad macro course. Do conservatives genuinely Believe these people understand any economics? Luckily he withdrew, but the Fed kind of matters for the economy. I find it worrying if Trump gets to fill it with complete idiots.

1.They were actually chosen to fill two separate positions, Moore didn't replace Cain.

2.I agree with you on Stephen Moore, but he is actually reported to have a masters in economics from George Mason University. He makes so many idiotic and factually wrong comments on basic economic matters that I can't believe he didn't make a false claim about having this masters, but its hard to believe George Mason University wouldn't have pointed mentioned something by now.

There are a number of rather entertaining discussions on youtube between Catherine Rampell and Stephen Moore that highlight Moore's basic lack of knowledge on economic concepts and terms.  In one discussion, he refers to the 'Volcker rule' as 'Volcker's view that when commodity prices rise, that the Fed should raise its Federal Fund rate.'

In fact, this is the Volcker rule: The Volcker Rule prohibits banks from using customer deposits for their own profit. They can't own, invest in, or sponsor hedge funds, private equity funds, or other trading operations for their use. The rule is section 619 of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform Act of 2010.

In another example, she pointed out that Moore seemed to not understand the difference between deflation, which is an ongoing reduction in prices, and disinflation, which is a reduction in the rate of inflation (say from 2% to 1%.)

The main takedown of Stephen Moore, is his concern trolling during the Obama Administration that the low Federal Funds rate would lead to hyper-inflation, but, as soon as Trump became President, he argued that the Federal Funds rate needed to remain low to allow the economy to grow.

Stephen Moore is a dishonest hyper-partisan hack who seems to have no understanding of economic terms or basic concepts, but he really does have a masters in economics.

[136or142]

Reading the interview.  I found this part interesting:

"The reason I like commodities even more than looking at consumer prices, or producer prices, is we know in real time, instantaneously, what’s happening with the price of commodities. You can go on your computer screen right now and find out what happened five minutes ago to prices of commodities."

I made virtually the same comment in the economics section "when will the next recession be" but I never suggested that this was an original idea, and Moore doesn't seem to understand the reason commodity prices rise.

He says: "If you’re looking at prices as I do, are they stable or are they rising or falling? If prices are rising, that means inflation is happening and that means that the Fed should raise interest rates. If prices are falling, then that means the Fed should inject more money into the economy. It’s not complicated, really. It’s just keep the prices stable."

Well, it's not quite that simple because commodity prices can rise due to speculation (or short term 'shocks'.)  But, more importantly it contradicts with this:

" think that the economy can grow at a brisk pace of 3, 4, 5%. And that that actually will reduce inflation when you have more growth and output and that pushing up wages for workers is a beneficial thing, not something that should be attacked."

This is absurd, given his understanding of the importance of focusing on commodity prices, as I wrote in the other thread: "Market cycles do occur: an expanding economy ultimately grows faster than the factors that need to support it can expand (labor and inputs) and this leads to inflation in those factors which leads to rising interest rates, which leads to slowdown..."

At any given point in time, commodity output (inputs) can only increase by so much.

Also

"What I’m saying is they should target prices so they’re going to set the interest rate so they’re going to set the interest rate based off of whether prices are rising above or below their target. It’s very simple it’s not complicated, right?"

Ummm, this is what the Federal Reserve does.  

The Fed officially begin inflation targeting in 2012, but was implicitly targeting 2 percent long before that time.

https://macromarketmusings.blogspot.com/2019/04/is-low-inflation-really-mystery.html


3."If you get everything right with the real economy and got more worker productivity, and more people in the workforce...and more innovation and capital investment, you know, God, the economy grew by like 7% under Reagan, for four or five quarters."

This followed on a major recession, so the economy wasn't operating at full potential output.  Unbelievable to not appreciate this.

 

[Gustaf]

I didn't see a thread on this, pardon if I missed it. After Herman Cain (lol) had to withdraw Trump proposed Stephen Moore, founder of the Club for Growth and columnist/commentator on economic issues.

I was Reading this interview with Moore: https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/policy/economy/trump-pick-stephen-moore-lays-out-his-vision-for-the-federal-reserve

Now, I'm not at all specialized in monetary policy but...this guy has no idea about it. As in, he would embarass himself at an intermediate undergrad macro course. Do conservatives genuinely Believe these people understand any economics? Luckily he withdrew, but the Fed kind of matters for the economy. I find it worrying if Trump gets to fill it with complete idiots.

1.They were actually chosen to fill two separate positions, Moore didn't replace Cain.

2.I agree with you on Stephen Moore, but he is actually reported to have a masters in economics from George Mason University. He makes so many idiotic and factually wrong comments on basic economic matters that I can't believe he didn't make a false claim about having this masters, but its hard to believe George Mason University wouldn't have pointed mentioned something by now.

There are a number of rather entertaining discussions on youtube between Catherine Rampell and Stephen Moore that highlight Moore's basic lack of knowledge on economic concepts and terms.  In one discussion, he refers to the 'Volcker rule' as 'Volcker's view that when commodity prices rise, that the Fed should raise its Federal Fund rate.'

In fact, this is the Volcker rule: The Volcker Rule prohibits banks from using customer deposits for their own profit. They can't own, invest in, or sponsor hedge funds, private equity funds, or other trading operations for their use. The rule is section 619 of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform Act of 2010.

In another example, she pointed out that Moore seemed to not understand the difference between deflation, which is an ongoing reduction in prices, and disinflation, which is a reduction in the rate of inflation (say from 2% to 1%.)

The main takedown of Stephen Moore, is his concern trolling during the Obama Administration that the low Federal Funds rate would lead to hyper-inflation, but, as soon as Trump became President, he argued that the Federal Funds rate needed to remain low to allow the economy to grow.

Stephen Moore is a dishonest hyper-partisan hack who seems to have no understanding of economic terms or basic concepts, but he really does have a masters in economics.

1. I'm aware of that, though I guess I could have phrased it more clearly. As I recall, Cain wasn't even the first candidate Trump proposed for the position.

2. Also aware of the George Mason master. They should say something actually - although it's heavily political, I still had the impression they took their academic work reasonably seriously. This reflects pretty poorly on them.

And yeah the stuff on targeting the interest rate boggles the mind. Absolutely fantastic someone like that could ever be considered for the Fed.

[136or142]

I didn't see a thread on this, pardon if I missed it. After Herman Cain (lol) had to withdraw Trump proposed Stephen Moore, founder of the Club for Growth and columnist/commentator on economic issues.

I was Reading this interview with Moore: https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/policy/economy/trump-pick-stephen-moore-lays-out-his-vision-for-the-federal-reserve

Now, I'm not at all specialized in monetary policy but...this guy has no idea about it. As in, he would embarass himself at an intermediate undergrad macro course. Do conservatives genuinely Believe these people understand any economics? Luckily he withdrew, but the Fed kind of matters for the economy. I find it worrying if Trump gets to fill it with complete idiots.

1.They were actually chosen to fill two separate positions, Moore didn't replace Cain.

2.I agree with you on Stephen Moore, but he is actually reported to have a masters in economics from George Mason University. He makes so many idiotic and factually wrong comments on basic economic matters that I can't believe he didn't make a false claim about having this masters, but its hard to believe George Mason University wouldn't have pointed mentioned something by now.

There are a number of rather entertaining discussions on youtube between Catherine Rampell and Stephen Moore that highlight Moore's basic lack of knowledge on economic concepts and terms.  In one discussion, he refers to the 'Volcker rule' as 'Volcker's view that when commodity prices rise, that the Fed should raise its Federal Fund rate.'

In fact, this is the Volcker rule: The Volcker Rule prohibits banks from using customer deposits for their own profit. They can't own, invest in, or sponsor hedge funds, private equity funds, or other trading operations for their use. The rule is section 619 of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform Act of 2010.

In another example, she pointed out that Moore seemed to not understand the difference between deflation, which is an ongoing reduction in prices, and disinflation, which is a reduction in the rate of inflation (say from 2% to 1%.)

The main takedown of Stephen Moore, is his concern trolling during the Obama Administration that the low Federal Funds rate would lead to hyper-inflation, but, as soon as Trump became President, he argued that the Federal Funds rate needed to remain low to allow the economy to grow.

Stephen Moore is a dishonest hyper-partisan hack who seems to have no understanding of economic terms or basic concepts, but he really does have a masters in economics.

1. I'm aware of that, though I guess I could have phrased it more clearly. As I recall, Cain wasn't even the first candidate Trump proposed for the position.

2. Also aware of the George Mason master. They should say something actually - although it's heavily political, I still had the impression they took their academic work reasonably seriously. This reflects pretty poorly on them.

And yeah the stuff on targeting the interest rate boggles the mind. Absolutely fantastic someone like that could ever be considered for the Fed.

I don't know what if anything it says about George Mason University.  There are studies that show that a lot of people with economics degrees, if not masters, can't answer questions that rely on understanding the concepts behind the economic equations.  For all that I know, Stephen Moore is really good at calculus and was able to answer the exam questions (most economics exams are based on answering mathematical questions and are often multiple choice questions, so conceptual questions aren't asked as much.) I don't know what his masters thesis is.