CEA Jude Wanniski April 4, 2005

From: Ben.S.Bernanke@***.gov
Subject: Re: The CEAT
o: Jude Wanniski <jwanniski@polyconomics.com >

 

From Ben S. Bernanke, 3:29 pm, 4/4/2005

Jude:   Thanks for the note.  Feel free to continue letting me know your
views (I am sure you will).   Ben

                                                                           
From: Jude Wanniski <jwanniski@polyconomics.com                                             
To:  Ben.Bernanke@* * * *.gov                   
Subject:  The CEA    04/04/2005 03:42  PM

Dear Ben:

Did I send you a congratulatory note on you CEA nomination?  I thought it did as soon as I learned about Saturday, but now I can't find a record of it. If not, you should know that my first instantaneous reaction was extremely positive. I may be wrong, but I figure you are getting the post as an audition for the Fed chairmanship. Which means you have to mind your p's and q's, and make sure you are on the same page as Karl Rove.

You also get to spend time on national tv, the Sunday talkies, etc., which is another form of audition. And you will be expected to have lots of face time with the print media, kicking things around at least off the record.  Please let me know if there is anything I can do to help you and the President.

By the way, the NYTimes Magazine is doing a piece on "Gold" and the reporter assigned is coming out to Morristown tomorrow to spend a few hours with me -- having been told by someone at the NYT that I'm a serious person, not your run-of-the-mill "gold bug."  I will suggest that he talk to you as well and will keep my fingers crossed.

Have you had a chance to read our "Case Against the Fed"?  If so, please advise on where you think there might be weak spots in our analysis. You can be more open with me as CEA chairman than you were as Fed Governor. The markets don't get very excited when the CEA chair says this or that.

Jude

PS  I had lunch on Wall Street with Alan Greenspan on the very day he flew to Washington to take up his duties as CEA chairman in 1974 (?) Just he and I and Bob Bartley. I gave him some advice. I told him my experience with previous CEA chairmen were that when the President asked them for counsel on the economy and what he should be doing, they invariably would say to themselves, "Well he should do this, but George Meany would shoot it down at the AFL," and second best would be that, but he couldn't get that through the Democratic Senate, or third best... No, his conservative base would scream bloody murder.  So they would offer him fourth best, safest.  I told Greenspan that it isn't his job to make those political decisions, that's what the President was hired to do. He should simply give him his best economic judgement on policy issues that would surface.  Did Greenie take my advice? Not that I noticed.