My thought about a few economists

Rarely did I talk about economists in this blog for obvious reason as I am ignorant when it comes to intellectual economic readings; this is not to say I do not read stories about economists.

Alexander Hamilton

With current controversy about a cast (in Hamilton Broadway show) giving Vice President-elect Pence a “lecture” (I know some didn’t share this view) the other day.  It is the best time to talk about economist, since Alexander Hamilton was our first Secretary of Treasury.

How Hamilton died (killed by Aaron Burr, Thomas Jefferson’s vice president) in a duel by his political rival.  Illegal though the duel might be then, Burr was nevertheless never tried.  No need to fret about how acrimonious our political campaign is; we actually have come a long way; it used to be king/queen or death.

Paul Samuelson

I recall reading an article in the Wall Street Journal in 2013 (“A close bond and a shared love for dismal science”) talking about the bond between Lawrence Summers and his uncle, Paul Samuelson (MIT professor and Nobel laureate in Economics) based on their letters, which were made available to the public then.

Mr. Samuelson praised Mr. Summers (his nephew) about a job well done as the Clinton’s Secretary of Treasury, saying “So I’ll just say you were only perfect—in there with Hamilton and Gallatin,” a reference to Alexander Hamilton and Albert Gallatin.

Albert Gallatin was the Secretary of Treasury for Thomas Jefferson and James Madison (When we visited Monticello a few years ago, we saw a room called “Madison Room” as when he came for a visit he often would stay a month at a stretch.  These two ex-Presidents got along real well.).

Albert Gallatin

If you live in Western Pennsylvania as we do, you would know “Gallatin” (we used to have a Gallatin Bank in town, which was bought by PNC Bank).  He built a huge mansion in a now very rural area (about half an hour drive from here, we visited once).  It was said that Gallatin expected Route 40 going to be a main highway—the gateway to the West from Washington D.C.  His prediction/expectation was never realized.  Even a first-rate economist cannot be always right in predicting economic future.

As we know Paul Samuelson is the nemesis of the free market economist, Milton Friedman; they never reconciled. When Summers said, in a New York Times column in 2006, Friedman was “the most influential economist on the second half of the 20^th century,” his uncle, Samuelson responded, “For your eyes only [not anymore], I had to grade him low as a macro economist and stubbornly old fashioned.”

Lawrence Summers

Summer’s parents were distinguished academic economists.  He has two uncles of Nobel economic laureates: one form father side (used different last name) and one from mother side.  No wonder Summers was the youngest tenured professor in economics before age of 30.

I bet Trump’s Secretary of Treasury will come from the Wall Street, not from the academics.

Of all the economists the one I admire most is John Maynard Keynes who died in 1946 before the Nobel Prize in Economics was established in 1968.  I read him because he belonged to the Bloomsbury Group of intellectuals about whom I read some years ago.  He was a frequent visitor of Lady Ottoline Morrell’s house, where we came across (a very pleasant surprise) while walking from our hotel to the British Museum two years ago.

We read in a letter Churchill wrote to the President of War Production, “You should summon economists like Keynes to give their views personally.”

John Maynard Keynes

Keynes resigned from his position as the economic counselor while negotiating Versailles Treaty as his vehement opposition of harsh economic punishment against Germany fell to dead ears. France’s Clemenceau and America’s Wilson didn’t understand him.  Britain’s Lloyd George was sympathetic to his view, but ignored it, facing the pressure from re-election as the public wanted the Germans to be punished as much as possible.

We now know that the consequence the harsh economic punishment gave Hitler a chance to become Chancellor in 1932, as predicted in Keynes’s writing of Economic Consequences of the Peace, published in 1919.