Former Fed Staffer Says Central Bank Is Under the Thumb of Academics

Wsj.com ^

[ameribbean expat]

The Federal Reserve is dominated by academics who don’t know how finance and the economy really work, according to a former Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas staffer in her new book.

Danielle DiMartino Booth, an adviser to Richard Fisher when he was Dallas Fed president, says the economists who control most of the central bank’s seats of power filter their decision-making through theoretical models. That led the institution to miss the forces that created the financial crisis, and then adopt the wrong policies to put the economy back on track, she says.

Ms. Booth makes her case in a book called “Fed Up: An Insider’s Take on Why the Federal Reserve Is Bad for America,” set to be published Tuesday.

[ameribbean expat]

The lady knows what she's talking about. Too many egg heads, not enough life experience. Like every other entity in DC. As soon as somebody creates an administrative regulator, the universities respond by establishing a curriculum to meet its staffing needs. The rest of us pay the price.

[ConservativeMind]

Interesting post. I hadn’t heard of this book.

Thanks.

[ClearCase_guy]

One of the really key takeaways of the Trump Revolution is that a lot of the Decision Makers at the very top have never had jobs, do not understand the world, have no idea how to get anything done, and are a major stumbling block on the road to national success.

Obama, McCain, Clinton, Pelosi, Kerry — the list is endless. These people have no skills that would lead to success in the real world. Total parasites.

The billionaire real estate guy from NYC with successful business ventures around the world? The guy with the incredibly loyal staff? The guy with the great family?

He. Is. Totally. Different.

[ameribbean expat]

“I never let school interfere with my education”
- Mark Twain

[thulldud]

There was a time when only a few of the most tip-top intellectuals and leaders went to college, and there they were taught Latin, Greek, and classic literature. Professional training was all OJT — law, medicine, etc.

It wasn't for everybody, just for leaders. The effect was that the natural leaders of the culture knew from their classical reading that there really was "nothing new under the sun" and all these sure-fire statist utopian remedies had been tried before and failed every time.

Early in the 20th century all that classical instruction was tossed under the bus, as the progressivist/technocratic elites implemented their "new" model. Here we see the results: cadres educated far beyond their intelligence, unfit for any real job that people would willingly pay for, living by sucking their neighbors dry.

It took generations to develop, and it could take a couple more to devolve (if ever).

[PGR88]

The federal reserve is the absolute foundation of the leftist nanny state and all its social engineering schemes

[ClearCase_guy]

Victor Davis Hanson focused on that problem for quite awhile. His book “Who Killed Homer?” is an examination of how classics were systematically removed from the education curriculum. He comes to basically the same conclusion you have: the features of a good education that made society successful were removed so that easy, low quality education could be sold to the masses.

Bad trade-off.

[VTenigma]

We didn’t need a “former staffer” to tell us what was readily apparent.

[veracious]

Exactly.

[thulldud]

...the features of a good education that made society successful were removed so that easy, low quality education could be sold to the masses.

Bad trade-off.

Not for the elitists, it wasn't. But for the rest of us, whom they consider their farm livestock, I agree.