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| Cold Chicago is the venue for pessimism among economists. |
In Chicago, Justin Wolfers writing for The New York Times from the annual conference of economists reports:
Few of [Trump's] key economic advisers have any economics training, and the only official who identifies as an economist — Peter Navarro, who earned a Harvard Ph.D. in economics and will head up the newly formed National Trade Council — stands so far outside the mainstream that he endorses few of the key tenets of the profession...Mainstream economists may not have the right answers but they sure can spot trouble in front of them.
Concern about the role of economic advice translated into concern about the economy. Over three days of intense discussions, I didn’t encounter a single economist who expressed optimism that Mr. Trump’s administration would be good for the economy. The optimists were those who thought Mr. Trump would not have the energy to actually implement his agenda; the pessimists’ thoughts veered toward disaster.
-RW
But for some of the policies being espoused by the Trump team, I would have regarded the comment "Few of [Trump's] key economic advisers have any economics training" to be a huge plus, given the state of "economics training" in the vast majority of economics programs in the U.S.
ReplyDeleteLet's hope that congress takes some more responsibility and serves as a useful balance of power.
ReplyDelete