I'm not sure completely what's going in one Mankiw post, but reading between the lines, it doesn't sound nice. Here's the full post:
Marty leaves AIGFor the record, a question I ask other economists when I meet them is some form of the question, "Do you know what the current money supply growth is?" Not many know. I saw Marty in Los Angeles last summer, when I asked him, he hesitated a bit and then gave me the exact number off of that week's Federal Reserve H.6 report. Marty's watching the numbers, which is probably why he is more concerned about inflation than Mankiw.
The Crimson reports that after 22 years, Marty Feldstein is leaving the AIG board of directors, where he served "on the board’s finance and risk management committee as well as the regulatory, compliance, and public policy committee."
This will give Marty more time for his work on President Obama's economic advisory panel.
Was Feldstein in that post at AIG during the now notorious credit default swap failures? And if so, isn't this another case of those responsible for the current crisis being put in charge of the 'rescue'?
ReplyDelete@ Earth
ReplyDeleteYes, but this is a twisted plot. Feldstein has turned decidedly inflation hawk. He is very much aware of the inflatiion threat.
He is the only one near Obama that appears to have such strong fears. He is a good guy to have around Obama. Unfortunately, he is on the advisory board that is headed by Volcker,which is where Obama is dumping anyone he can't ignore, but whch he really doesn't want to hear from.
Mankiw in this twisted tale is the inflationist, as he continues to promote "negative" interest rates (which is really a tax) so that it will cause people to spend money that would otherwise be saved.
I'll take Feldstein next to Obama any day over Mankiw.