Category Archives: technocrats

iPhone Sales: Not Dreadful, Not Spectacular Either

Jeff Matthews is getting a lot of blogosphere linkage for his piece saying that iPhone sales are much lower than the likes of Gene Munster would like to think. But here’s how Matthews’ logic works: The 10,000-a-day consensus among Wall … Continue reading

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Jockeying Begins for IMF Position

Is there some kind of rule which says that high-profile international technocrats
have to be French?
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Speculating on the IMF Succession

The favorite at the moment would seem to be Mervyn King, of the Bank of England – a strong central banker and someone I can’t see generating any real opposition.
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Larry Summers: The Pundit Without Policies

Summers falls short of promulgating economic policies which might reduce inequality.
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What Is Larry Summers Wearing?

David
Leonhardt
had an interesting profile of Larry Summers in
the NYT yesterday. Leonhardt reckons that Summers could (and probably should)
become a Democratic Henry Kissinger, intimately involved in policy decisions
despite not having an official government job.
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Why Alan Greenspan Shouldn’t Shut Up

The more that Greenspan speaks, the more obvious his utter lack of market-moving influence will become. So speak, Maestro! Then we can all get on with ignoring you.
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Why Economic Advisers Advise

It’s only natural that for anybody who’s never going to be elected president themselves, the next best thing would be to have real policy influence over the president – which is something you might be able to get by hitching your star to a campaign early on.
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Questions for Economic Advisers

Harvard’s Greg Mankiw, an economic adviser to Mitt
Romney
, notes
on his blog
that Berkeley’s Christina Romer and David
Romer
are economic advisers to Barack Obama; Stanford’s
Michael Boskin is advising Rudy Giuliani;
and Boston University’s Larry Kotlikoff is advising Mike
Gravel
.
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Uruguay: A Quiet Latin Success Story

Carlos Steneri and the resurgence of Uruguay.
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Wolfowitz, Rogoff, and Intrade

Ken Rogoff laughs in Paul Wolfowitz’s face.
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How Not to Keep Your Job

On Charlie Wilson, Randall Tobias, Alan Clark, and Paul Wolfowitz.
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Finance Ministry vs Central Bank

Agustin Carstens critizes his country’s central bank.
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Will The US Adopt Principle-Based Regulation?

You expect to hear about "regime harmonization with Europe" when
the subject is something that Europe has a lot of and the US has none of –
carbon trading, for example. But today we heard it from Michael Oxley,
on the subject of something the US has a lot of and Europe has much less of:
capital-markets regulation.
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Ryan Changes his Mind About Treasury Job

To lose
one undersecretary of international
affairs
could be considered a misfortune; to lose
two
– especially when #2 hasn’t even started in the job yet –
looks suspiciously like carelessness.

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