Wow. Richard Shelby has to have balls of steel to make such an obviously bullshit claim. With that kind of nerve, I bet he could tell us the sky is green and still keep a straight face.
A quote from the Wiki article on Peter Diamond:
He advocates tax increases? That clearly makes him unqualified to do anything as far as a Republican goes.
Does this surprise anyone? He could’ve studied under both Keynes and Goldstein for all the republicans care; if he isn’t part of their agenda, they won’t have him. Fucking partisan politics… A centrist is completely unwelcome, of course…
You know, i haven’t read any of Peter Diamond’s work, and i really don’t know anything much about him as an economist. I’m also willing to bet, in the same way that i would bet on the sun rising, that the Republicans blocking his nomination are doing so out of partisan political motives rather than anything to do with his experience and abilities.
But i do want to point out that it’s perfectly possible to be the recipient of the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel without having any real monetary policy experience. Economics is a pretty big discipline, and there are whole swaths of it that really have very little to do with the sort of monetary policy decisions made by the Federal Reserve.
As has been pointed out, it also has nothing to do with monetary policy.
I agree that his nomination is doublessly being opposed for partisan reasons, but assuming “economist” means “expert in monetary policy” is very much like assuming that a “scientist” must be an expert in molecular biology.
Just echoing the above: the blocking of Peter Diamond is, with utmost certainty, partisan sniping. But the statement that he doesn’t have a great deal of monetary policy experience is essentially accurate; relatively speaking he doesn’t. To my knowledge he’s focused most of his professional attention on retirement issues.
We went through this almost a year ago.
You can see Diamond’s publications on SSRN here.
There’s a Nobel Prize in Economy? “Witchcraft! I say.”
But “The Professor” on Gilligan’s Island knew everything!
He flunked Boat Repair.
Well Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize without having done anything to deserve it as far as I can tell.
Just sayin.
Come on! We all know that Prof Hinckley could have patched up the Minnow.
He was on a beautiful tropical island with Mary Ann!
Why would he want to leave?
He had a name? I never knew that!
Well, it is called The Dismal Science, after all.
Professor Roy Hinkley. And Skipper Jonas Grumby, for bonus points. Keep 'em locked away – they’re bound to come up at some trivia contest or another at some point in your life.
A lot of posters in this thread have similarly decried “partisan” politics. I’m curious as to how these people differentiate between partisan and policy.
Is the allegation that Republicans object to the guy because he is identified as a Democrat? Or as payback for some past political fight? Or because they think it will give some political (election) advantage to the Democrats?
Or is it because they object to his political/fiscal/monetary ideology?
Because if it’s the latter, I don’t see anything “partisan” about it. And if it’s the former, I wonder what evidence these posters have for the assertion.
No there isn’t. There’s a ‘Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel’ which apes and mimics the real Nobel prizes so successfully that the media talk of Nobel prize-winning economists.
You say “apes and mimics” as if the prize is some sub-standard knock-off piggybacking on the “real” Nobel prizes, but the fact is that the Sveriges Riksbank Prize is, for all intents and purposes, the Nobel Prize in Economics.
It carries the same prestige and significance in economics as the Nobel Prizes for physics, chemistry, medicine and literature do in their respective fields, and it is listed on the official Nobel Prize website.
While the Sveriges Riksbank Prize might have been instituted later, and might not officially be called the Nobel Prize in Economics, for practical purposes it is essentially the same thing. Referring to a “Nobel prize-winning economist” is a completely reasonable shorthand for the media to use, and is caviled at only by pedants.
Burn heeeem!
There’s more to it than that. Much, much more.
Stranger