The US Fed under Ben Bernanke has just announced that it will buy an additional US$600 billion of Treasuries - another "stimulus" to tackle unemployment and avoid "deflation." In India, this announcement has already generated significant alarm, what with inflation already running so high.
But who is Ben Bernanke? And what are his credentials as an "economist"?
There is an excellent article today by Mark Thornton of the Mises Institute on this man and his career, titled "Bernanke's Solutions are the Problem." I recommend it highly to all. In this post, I will draw my reader's attention to his pre-eminence as a "mainstream economist." Thornton writes:
Ben Bernanke went to Harvard University, where he received his undergraduate degree in economics. He then went to graduate school at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, MIT, where he received his PhD in economics. His thesis adviser was Stanley Fischer, and his committee consisted of Fischer, Rudiger Dornbusch, and Robert Solow, a Nobel Prize winner. (He also thanked Harvard University professors Dale Jorgenson and Peter Diamond [Nobel laureate 2010] in his dissertation.) It is safe to say that he had an elite education in mainstream economics.
Bernanke has taught at Stanford University, New York University, and Princeton University, where he served as chairman of the department from 1996 to 2002. Bernanke has authored major textbooks, has served as the National Bureau of Economic Research's director of monetary economics, and was an editor of the American Economic Review. He is still considered to be one of the top 20 authors of all time in academic economics journals despite having been out of academia for almost a decade.
Simultaneously, there is another article on Bernanke I found today on LewRockwell.com, referring to a speech given by the legendary investor Jim Rogers at Oxford. Speaking to students there, Rogers advised them to "scrap career plans for Wall Street or the City, London’s financial district, and to study agriculture and mining instead." Here is what Rogers said about Ben Bernanke:
...all he understands is printing money. Dr. Bernanke unfortunately does not understand economics, he does not understand currencies, he does not understand finance.
So, stay far away from "mainstream Economics."
Now that Mr. Obama is here, this is certainly a good time to discuss Mr. Bernanke. In think we need an American style Tea Party Movement. Political movements are not going to work, what we need is a non-political moment like the Tea Party that will inspire a new kind of politics in the country.
ReplyDeletePeople are fed up with corruption and the loot that the political class is indulging in (all in the name of helping the poor.) Politicians are the most discredited bunch of people in the country. I find it impossible to believe that there is a single politician in the country who is not corrupt. Each one of them is out to rob the nation. They have a vested interest in keeping the country poor and illiterate.
In India we need an equivalent of America’s Tea Party Movement. But who will lead India’s Tea Party Movement. Maybe Chetan Bhagat can.
Chetan Bhagat is the new God of the Middle Class in India. I am pleasantly surprised by many of the articles he has written in TOI. Earlier I used to think of him only as someone who wrote entertaining stories, but now I realize that he is a political thinker who as accurately understood the mood of the country.
What I like about him is that he does not hide his real views behind a false display of hypocrisy and subtlety. He expresses himself clearly and bluntly. So people know exactly where he stands and they can decide if they want to support him.
Chetan Bhagat needs to be supported. During the last few months, I have already purchased each and every book that he has written. Well, that is my small way of coming out in support of the person who I think might one day be the leader of India’s Tea Party Movement.
This country has tolerated incompetence and corruption for 63 years, and now this situation has become suffocating. I can hardly breathe in this atmosphere of corruption and lack of accountability from the powerful elite.
Please seat Rand Paul as soon as possible so he can jail the Paper Hangers...
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