Every tiime I hear Art Woolf described as one of “Vermont's leading economists,” I almost double over as if with a knife-like pain in the abdomen.
The word, “leading,” desbrides the present tense. Are you a leader today, and are you leading others toward tomorrow. “Leading” does not mean you served as a State Economist decades ago.
One way to determine the present quality of any economist's opinion is to ask the question, “Did he get it right?”
For those who don't follow finance, be assured it was a collapse of huge magnitude and right now the Fed is throwing a trillion dollars at it and crossing their fingers. We're borrowing new money — raising our national debt ceiling to $11.5 trillion — to throw a safety net under the so-called “free” market system, beginning with an 80% buyup of the world's largest insurance company, AIG, through the purchase of warrants. There's no guaranteel that this trick will work, but whether it does or not, we're talking about an incredibly heavy debt-load for future generations.
Art Woolf, alledgedly “one of Vermont's leading economists,” recently wailed and moaned in response to the July 29th Rutland Herald editorial, “Revisiting the Depression.”
On the same day, Mr. Woolf asserts that, despite the financial crisis,
Economic indicators are not great, but they are far from the worst we have seen since the 1930s. They are still better than they were in the early 1990s, for example.
Economic indicators? Sure the econonomy is just dandy at the time the Fed is bailing out Frannie Mae and Freddie Mac, bankruptcies and foreclosures are rising through the roof and the unemployment rate is increasing. As any economist might predict, everything is just fine, pay no attention to that elephant in the room.
“Leading economist” Woolf centers his rebuttal around a quibble of history, arguing that policies from the Federal Reserve caused the great depression. What gets his ire up is this line from the Herald:
The Depression showed what can happen when policymakers place their trust in the self-correcting magic of the market.
“It was the Fed's fault! It was the Fed's fault!” Woolf cries out, chastising the Herald for not knowing their history.
Fair enough Mr. Woolf. You've earned the title of “Vermont's leading economic historian.”
But the next time I hear you on the radio, I won't be bringing you free-market ideology to the bank.
http://www.vermonttiger.com/content/2008/07/getting-history.html