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(17,003 posts)I cant imagine a more ill-equipped group to attempt anything more complicated than opening a jar of peanut butter.
Cha
(297,188 posts)laugh. Sorry, it was the peanut butter.
StaySafe
mahatmakanejeeves
(57,425 posts)Mnuchin attended Riverdale Country School in New York City. He graduated from Yale University in 1985 with a bachelor's degree in economics. At Yale, Mnuchin was publisher of the Yale Daily News, and was also initiated into Skull and Bones in 1985.
Mnuchin's first job was as a trainee at investment bank Salomon Brothers in the early 1980s, while still studying at Yale.
His faculty adviser at Yale helped him get his first summer job on Wall Street. In 1961, he received a Master of Business Administration degree at Harvard Business School.
After graduating from Choate in 2000, she attended Georgetown University for two years before transferring to the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, from which she graduated cum laude with a bachelor's degree in economics in 2004. Her father had also transferred to Wharton after two years at another institution, Fordham University.
unblock
(52,206 posts)i mean, hell, i was an emt for a while, and hey, i slept at a holiday inn express, so i guess i'm qualified to be on this committee!
seriously, though, when it comes to public policy, an undergraduate econ degree, or even an mba, is nothing. wall street/finance experience is worth something, though really that's finance, not economics.
in any event, i'll accept that the point was slightly overstated, but it is nevertheless a horrendous committee lineup.
mahatmakanejeeves
(57,425 posts)aren't economists.
As mr_lebowski says in another reply, what's worse is that there is no one there with any knowledge of public health.
mr_lebowski
(33,643 posts)I don't know either way, but I'm guessing not.
The lack of any Public Health professionals is far more alarming to me in either case.
hatrack
(59,584 posts)So:
Mnuchin got a undergraduate economics degree during Reagan's second term;
Princess Grifty Sof-Tone floated in from Choate for her "studies";
Ross got an MBA personally signed by Amenhotep the III.
Good to know.
love_katz
(2,579 posts)... "personally signed by Amenhotep the III"! Thank you for the giving me hysterical laughter. I needed that so bad.
Sloumeau
(2,657 posts)Furthermore, having an MBA in no way makes one an economist. AOC has a bachelor's degree in economics. Would most people consider her an economist? Furthermore, a number of so-called Economists are terrible. Anyone who puts Milton Friedman, anyone who believes in the Chicago School of Economics, the Austrian School of Economics, Supply Side Economics, or anyone in favor of MMT ahead of Keynesian Economics doesn't really have a leg to stand on. They might as well be called Witch Doctors.
mahatmakanejeeves
(57,425 posts)Back when dinosaurs roamed the earth, I took an economics course from someone who was recommended by Milton Friedman for his position. He was a brilliant person, and I consider myself privileged to have taken his course.
Sloumeau
(2,657 posts)idiot when it comes to economics. From Wikipedia:
[link:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milton_Friedman|]
With George Stigler and others, Friedman was among the intellectual leaders of the Chicago school of economics, a neoclassical school of economic thought associated with the work of the faculty at the University of Chicago that rejected Keynesianism in favor of monetarism until the mid-1970s, when it turned to new classical macroeconomics heavily based on the concept of rational expectations.
If someone wants to argue that Monetarism or new classical macroeconomics can be a useful tool, then fine. If, however, you reject Keynesian Economics in favor of either Monetarism or New Classical Macroeconomics, then you are a fool.
Here's one of the many examples of what a complete and utter fool Friedman was.
[link:https://m.signalvnoise.com/milton-friedman-on-the-four-ways-you-can-spend-money/|]
Milton Friedman on the four ways you can spend money
1. You can spend your own money on yourself. When you do that, why then you really watch what youre doing, and you try to get the most for your money.
2. You can spend your own money on somebody else. For example, I buy a birthday present for someone. Well, then Im not so careful about the content of the present, but Im very careful about the cost.
3. I can spend somebody elses money on myself. And if I spend somebody elses money on myself, then Im sure going to have a good lunch!
4. I can spend somebody elses money on somebody else. And if I spend somebody elses money on somebody else, Im not concerned about how much it is, and Im not concerned about what I get.
Milton Friedman always had a political agenda. He wanted people to think that government spending was bad and that higher taxes were bad. So, as in the above example, he sometimes gave ridiculous lists. Here is the reality:
1. People are stupid with their own money all of the time. His assertion that people are especially careful with their own money is nonsense. Las Vegas was built on people being stupid with their own money. Loan sharks and check cashing centers depend upon people being stupid with their own money. Bar owners, strip club owners, pimps, and drug dealers depend upon people being stupid with their own money. The list goes on and on.
2. I have always been more careful when I spend money on someone else than myself. If I buy a gift for myself and it turns out badly, oh well. However, what happens if I spend a lot of money on something really stupid and of poor quality for my girlfriend or wife? Things are much worse then.
3. Whenever I have spent someone else's money on myself, I am extra careful. If someone says, "I'm buying lunch" and I order an expensive lunch, they might feel taken advantage of, and I might lose the friendship. At the very least, my friend may not offer to buy me lunch again. In Friedman's attempt to say that the government should not have money to spend, he defies common sense and logic.
4. This is Friedman at his worst. When I was a store manager of a chain of retail stores, I had to decide how much to pay people when I hired them, and how big a raise to give them. If I spent too much on employees, it would kill my budget and it would lessen my store profit. I don't know what world Milton Friedman pretends to live in, but it is not the real world.
To read Friedman is to find him twisting logic and defying the real world over and over again in order to try to distort the real world in order to fit his agenda. You might have liked the economist that Friedman recommended, but Milton Friedman often talks out of his buttocks.
Varaddem
(432 posts)Doesnt mince many words when it comes to Milton Friedman and supply side.
Twisted logic is a good description. If its so perfect why has it Totally imploded twice in 12 years?
demmiblue
(36,845 posts)calguy
(5,306 posts)She's almost as qualified as the others.
Submariner
(12,503 posts)if not the Hooker, who else?
unblock
(52,206 posts)and their married to each other.
remember when everything related to the entire russia investigation was tainted because two of the fbi people were involved with each other? but having a couple here is no problem....
remember when biden's son getting a job in the private sector in a different country on a different continent was a huge scandal? but donnie putting not one but two family members on this committee is no problem at all....
blm
(113,052 posts)In his 70s by now? He served in Reagan administration, iirc.
mr_lebowski
(33,643 posts)From Mar a Lago ... would've figured he'd make the cut.
Arkansas Granny
(31,515 posts)PSPS
(13,594 posts)All the sycophants that appear with trump (these included) should wear a sweater emblazoned with "TRUMP" and be carrying a paper megaphone similarly adorned.
TrishaJ
(798 posts)sycophants.
jpak
(41,757 posts)Baclava
(12,047 posts)hatrack
(59,584 posts)gratuitous
(82,849 posts)Well, except in seeing who can agree the hardest with whatever Trump's saying right this second.
cbdo2007
(9,213 posts)serious damage to the economy that whoever these people tell to go back out in the economy won't do much good. The people that do go back out in the economy will keep passing COVID around until November so that Trump will lose the election.
Looks like a win/win group for us!
ConnorMarc
(653 posts)Yet Republicans, self-proclaimed conservatives and rightwingers are cheering this on all they way.