Obama’s Far-Right Fed Nominee Engineered Bush Policies that Wrecked the Economy — by NormanB (“Deviations from the Norm”)

 

By appointing Richard Clarida to the Fed, President Obama appears to be trying to deepen our economic Depression. Oh, did I say “Depression”? I meant “Recovery.”

 

Economics Professor Richard Clarida’s Columbia University School of International and Public Affairs bio says:

http://www.sipa.columbia.edu/academics/directory/rhc2-fac.html

“From February 2002 until May 2003, Clarida served as the Assistant Secretary of the United States Treasury for Economic Policy, a position that required confirmation by the US Senate. In that position, he served as chief economic advisor to the Treasury Secretary, and advising him on a wide range economic policy issues, including the U.S. and global economic prospects, international capital flows, corporate governance, and the maturity structure of U.S. debt.”

Clarida, President Obama’s new nominee for Federal Reserve Board Governor, was the dog that didn’t bark when President Bush wanted to begin the Iraq War: When the American people really needed someone honest and conscientious advising the Bush Administration, we got Richard Clarida instead.

 

Here are some of Clarida’s own words, from a US Treasury document:

“The plan would provide across-the-board tax relief for individuals … Lower tax rates would aid small business owners as well, many millions of which pay taxes at the top individual rate.”

Reports at the time said this economic misstep was the first time in the history of the world that a country cut taxes during a war. That’s because cutting taxes during a war isn’t trying to win that war. (The US did go on to lose the Iraq War, spending a trillion dollars or so.)

Of his plan, Clarida goes on to state “… we need to shore up the rate of economic growth and create additional jobs.  The President’s plan will provide the impetus that is needed to meet these goals in both the short-run and over the longer term.” Turned out to be a bunch of hogwash.

http://www.treasury.gov/press-center/press-releases/Pages/js228.aspx

 

“At Newport Beach, California-based PIMCO, manager of the world’s biggest mutual fund, Clarida is an executive vice president in charge of the New York office and is the company’s global strategic adviser. Clarida has published articles on exchange rates, interest rates and international capital flows. He is a member of the National Bureau of Economic Research, where Stein is a research associate.”

(Harvard Economist Jeremy Stein is Barack Obama’s other current nominee to the Federal Reserve Board.)

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-08-12/obama-said-to-plan-nomination-of-stein-clarida-to-fed-board-of-governors.html

 

Some of Clarida’s economic writings have been called “New Keynesian,” but at Pacific Investment Management (PIMCO), where he’s Executive VP, the home page begins with “Saying no to Keynes,” i.e. ‘Say no to Government spending that would create jobs.’ Perhaps New Keynesian is as far from Keynesian as Neo-Liberal is from Liberal.

And PIMCO is the Neo-Liberal nightmare, the worst incarnation of that irresponsible libertarian laissez-faire attitude on the Golden Rule: “He who has the gold makes the rules.”

Laissez-faire indeed! Lazy-unfair, that’s what I call it. Watch the changing picture at the top of the page:

http://www.pimco.com/EN/Pages/default.aspx

 

And doesn’t anybody understand how wrong it is to put a fox in charge of the hen house, or an investment broker in charge of setting Fed policy?! Answering my own question, no, of course people don’t see through the propaganda; they don’t notice the obvious corruption invited by this Conflict of Interest:

Nobody’s even up in arms about the fact that investment brokers and banks, the very institutions we trust to manage our money, have looted that money so thoroughly that banks and brokers are now some of the biggest profit making businesses in the world. That in itself is a huge Conflict of Interest and highly improper. But it didn’t mention that in the newspaper or on TV, so nobody sees it. Bunch of apathetic hypnotized naive complacent sheep. Baaaaaaaaaaaah! Wake the fuck up!

 

Here are three much more tolerant vettings of this highly inappropriate nominee:

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-08-12/obama-said-to-plan-nomination-of-stein-clarida-to-fed-board-of-governors.html

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/post/obamas-fed-picks-an-introduction/2011/08/12/gIQAoKFhBJ_blog.html?wprss=ezra-klein

http://www.advancingwomen.com/richard-clarida-fomc-nominee/