That's not fair to Alan Blinder and Laura Tyson. Come to think of it, it's not fair to Joe Stiglitz or Bob Reich either.
[mbs] Blinder told *me* his influence was marginal. "I go in with better arguments and I lose." Quote unquote. I conclude sadly that the brilliant and liberal CEA was not among those w/influence. Once Laura migrated to the NEC she seemed to be less of an economist, though from what I could see she was never much of a keynesian to begin with. Too bad we never got into converting industry into labor- managed firms.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Alan and Laura concluded that the Federal Reserve held most of the
cards, and that a long high-investment expansion was impossible
without using major deficit reduction and Greenspan's fear of an
exploding federal debt to induce a relative lowering of interest
rates. They didn't morph into un-liberals, they struck the best
bargain they could with an Overwhelming Force down on the Mall.
>>>>>>>>>>>
[mbs] Better liberals would not be so easily overwhelmed. I remember not one stink, nor a discouraging word. If Stiglitz had raised one-tenth the hell he did later, after the WB, that would be a different story. Feldstein pissed off the Reagan WH. What's the problem?
>>>>>>>>>>
Joe and Bob did get marginalized by Bob Rubin, perhaps the most
skillful bureaucratic politician I have ever seen. But they tried...
Brad DeLong
>>>>>>>>>>>
Sounds an awful lot like, "In other words, No real liberal got a position with influence over economic policy . . . " Cousins, almost.
mbs