Posted on 01/28/2006 7:38:53 AM PST by Founding Father
The White House on Friday nominated Randall S. Kroszner, a conservative economics professor from the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business, to fill one of two vacancies on the seven-member Federal Reserve Board of Governors.
--snip--
"We're on different sides of the aisle, but he's extremely intelligent," said Goolsbee. "He's one of the two or three people in the world you'd turn to on banking regulation. I think any economist who knows Randy would say `Wow, what a good choice.'"
--snip--
Kashyap said Kroszner has a libertarian bent when it comes to issues like taxation and entitlement programs. He has long expressed skepticism about government attempts to fix economic problems.
(Excerpt) Read more at chicagotribune.com ...
I went to the UC Graduate School of Business and this is an excellent pick. And to see Goolsbee mentioned in this article makes me shudder - I saw him debate SS reform once and he was a smarmy little snot.
At least the "U. of C. professor" didn't turn out to be Ward Churchill.
The point of mentioning Goolsbee was that even though he is on the left fringe, he recognizes Kroszner as an exceptional choice that left wing loons would be hard pressed to oppose. Did you attend grad school in the new facilities?
U of C uses the now out of fashion approach of educating its students as opposed to indoctrinating them.
Randy Kroszner is an excellent choice. I can only suppose that the other fellow, a 36 year old, is some kind of off the scale genius.
At this juncture, we have three looming challenges to the integrity of our financial markets:
1. The smallest problem is the U.S. budget deficit. We were making good progress on this until we fell off the wagon last year. The Republicans are pathetic and the scandal issue is more about the Republican congressional leadership part of the problem instead of part of the solution (which is not to say that Democrats are a good alternative). Somehow, we have got to reign in the pork barrel spending and the earmarks, and either reduce our spending on military/foreign policy/homeland security or else raise taxes so as to cover the expense involved.
2. The intermedate-size problem is the defined benefit pension plans and unfunded retiree health insurance benefits of our country, many of which are hopelessly bankrupt and threaten the competitiveness of our older companies. My guess is that this problem will not be solved, but will result in the collapse of the companies involved, like the S&Ls collapsed during the 1980s. This is actually good news, since - while many people will be hurt badly - our country will survive.
3. Entitlement spending is the huge problem, with Medicare being the heavy half of the problem. Let's face it, if we don't address this problem, we won't have to worry about Operation Iraqi Freedom since it will be our country that goes by the boards. Does anybody seriously think you can raise taxes to 60 percent of income in order to cover these costs in the future? When France and Germany go bankrupt because of this problem, it will be too late for us. They, at least, have the advantage of being able to enjoy the present a little while longer, not knowing what's coming.
Kroszner is an expert about many of the issues involved in these matters. Hopefully, he and the Federal Reserve will gain the trust of Congress, so that our Congresspeople will get it into their thick heads that they have to shore-up our country's long-term solvency.
Could not have expressed it better myself.
BTW, maybe I should chang my name to Indian4ever (undergrad at Stanford, back in the day, before becoming a Maroon).
Well the fiat currency itself it the elephant in the closet isn't it. After all all previous banking regimes in the history of our nation have collapsed, including the three previous centrallized reserve banks. The money supply now is growing at an annualized rate of 20%. That's not sustainable. The other central banks are not happy.
Oh, yeah, Alan Greenspan was a Randian Libertarian before going onto the Fed too. Funny how that worked out.
I was in the Evening Program at the Gleacher Center.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.