Peter Diamond wins the Nobel Prize, continues being blocked by the Senate

[Hamlette]

For months now, Sen. Richard Shelby has been blocking the nomination of economist Peter Diamond to join the board of the Federal Reserve. "I do not believe he’s ready to be a member of the Federal Reserve Board," Shelby said, "I do not believe that the current environment of uncertainty would benefit from monetary policy decisions made by board members who are learning on the job.”

Today, Diamond won the Nobel Prize in economics. Of course, Shelby never said he wasn't a "skilled economist." He said he didn't know monetary economics. But that's foolish: Before serving on the Federal Reserve Board, Elizabeth Duke worked at a bank. Kevin Warsh worked for George W. Bush. Sarah Bloom Raskin was a financial regulator in Maryland. Ben Bernanke was an economist, and prior to that, one of Diamond's students. They all learned on the job.

And there's really no other choice. You can't serve on the Federal Reserve Board before you serve on the Federal Reserve Board. Shelby's argument against Diamond is cover for his actual objections against Diamond. One of those objections is simple partisan politics. But another, I've heard, is odder: Shelby hates behavioral economics.

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/

the world's greatest deliberative body?

indeed

[Botany]

1. Vote republican ..... proud to be stupid.

Wasn't Shelby the one who said that the bail out of GM would never work?

[BrklynLiberal]

2. Shelby knows what "behavioral economics" is??????????????

Why do I feel inclined to believe the basis for the block is something a lot deeper and more sinister?

[Botany]

3. Well maybe he is not as smart as Shelby

Diamond earned a bachelor's degree in mathematics from Yale University in 1960 and defended a Ph.D. at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1963.
He was an assistant professor at the University of California, Berkeley from 1964–65 and an acting associate professor there before joining the MIT faculty as
an associate professor in 1966. Diamond was promoted to full professor in 1970, served as head of the Department of Economics in 1985-86 and was named
an Institute Professor in 1997.

from wiki

[BrklynLiberal]

7. Diamond's quaifications were not the subject of the post..

Shelby's were.

[spanone]

4. american politics in a nutshell

[SoCalDem]

6. Yep.. So many in the "public" these days want the "stoooopid one"

yet when they need a doctor for their loved one, a mechanic for their car, a teacher for their kid, etc.... they want the smartest one.

What they seem to be saying is that when it actually touches their own family/life, they admire "smartitudinous" people...but when it's for a public servant who administers to the broad swath of "the public", stoooopid & pliable is all they aim for.

[BrklynLiberal]

5. BTW..the "destruction/construction" time-lapse video is fascinating.

[Hamlette]

13. wasn't it? I watched it twice.

I was expecting a big "boom" deconstruction and was initially disappointed but then found this more interesting. Watched it twice.

Here's a link for anyone who wants to waste a few minutes.

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/2010/10/lunch_break_258.html

[EFerrari]

8. . . .

[Hamlette]

10. one of the best lines in any movie ever!

love your sig

Such a funny move, such great characters, such a perfect line.

[EFerrari]

11. It works pretty well for GD.

:)

[Hamlette]

12. lol

hadn't even thought of that
Works lots of places, including any conversation with a republican, now that you mention it. (I remembered the line but not the ending "I looked it up" which makes it even better.)

I need to watch that movie again...soon.

[kenny blankenship]

9. the world's greatest deliberative body?

Indeed, it is that great. Legislation, as a process, has often been compared to alimentary things: its combinatory nature -the putting together of scrips and scraps- is compared to sausage making, its many revisions compared to cud-chewing, its ponderous deliberateness to ruminations. And so when we are being sticklers for aptness in our metaphors, the US Senate must be accorded its proper attributes and position of honor. The House is only the small intestine, but the Senate, being greater, is the large intestine, the colon. What emerges from the Senate is final and complete.

[Joe Chi Minh]

14. Another article in Guardian Online, here:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2010/oct/11/peter-diamond-nobel-prize-economics-2010-dale-mortensen-christopher-pissarides

[Hamlette]

16. great article, thanks

the guy sounds too smart for the US

He might be able to fix our problems. Can't have that. The the GOP is doomed.

Damn this makes me mad.

[rug]

15. Has the U.S. ever before had three Nobel Prize winners in government?