Posted on 12/16/2009 5:37:53 PM PST by Kaslin
Paul Samuelson, the dean of American economists, died last Sunday at 94. An MIT professor and Nobel Prize winner, Samuelson made one major venture into public policy. This was when he advised the John F. Kennedy campaign and economic transition team in 1960 and 1961 and thereafter consulted with the new president's Council of Economic Advisers.
Obituaries have been quick to credit Samuelson's advice to JFK for launching the great 1960s expansion. The Boston Globe quoted Samuelson's recommendation to JFK in 1961 — "a temporary reduction in tax rates on individual incomes can be a powerful weapon against recession" — and then made this observation: "The cut was widely credited with helping foster the 1960s economic boom."
To be sure, the advice of Samuelson, and of his economics confreres in JFK's "Camelot," has been cited far and wide as the cause of the incredible run of growth in the American economy from 1961 to 1968, when GDP increased by 5.1% per year, real federal revenues went up by more than a third, unemployment fell to 4%, and the Dow Jones industrial average hit 1000 for the first time.
But the connection is unwarranted. JFK listened to Samuelson, but aside from enacting popular business tax credits, he did not take his advice. Indeed, JFK did precisely the opposite of what Samuelson had counseled in the transition, and this decision is what sparked the boom.
(Excerpt) Read more at investors.com ...
Samuelson was no Friedman. He was a classic leftist academic (Larry Summers father-in-law). His policies were all a disaster. His idea of economic advice was to call 4 other economists and just report their opinions as his own.
Dems never learn from their mistakes because CONSERVATIVE republicans keep fixing their boondoggles!
Then the republican Conservatives get blamed for the problem in the first place, by the MSM!
This vicious cycle has to stop!
I’ve heard it said that “If you laid all the economists in the world end-to-end, they’d still never reach a conclusion.” I remember using Samuelson’s book in college, too, but really not much else.
My guess is, stupidity rolls uphill in a university setting. The higher you go, the more stupid you become. The Peter Principle on steroids.
Hmmm...exactly the type a demonrat politician would listen to and use as an excuse to make policy. No wonder so many university types believe in algore's global warming.
Thank god that I had already worked for a public owned company before I went to college and knew what it was all about. I had to qoute Samuelson and Galbraith in my economics courses, but I didn’t believe them.
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