Donald Trump Announces Team of Economic Advisors Which Includes No Actual Economists

All Are Men, All But One Are White

Donald Trump has announced the members of his economic advisory team, and there is not a single actual economist among them. The list of fourteen people, all men, no women, and all but one are white men, includes 11 CEOs or corporation presidents, at least four billionaires, and nine who are involved in real estate, oil and gas, banking, and/or hedge fund management.

University of Michigan economics professor Justin Wolfers, as Think Progress just reported, took to Twitter to note that there are “no actual economists” on Trump’s list of economic advisors, what the billionaire businessman is calling the Trump Economic Advisory Council. And perhaps worse, “only two have studied economics beyond an undergraduate level.”

Wolfers, who is also a New York Times contributing columnist, and a senior fellow at the Brookings Institute and the Peterson Institute for International Economics, sums up Trump’s team as “a wreck.”

Daily Kos also offers a detailed look at the list, concluding, “there are a couple of Wall Street hedge fund billionaires, at least two mortgage fraudsters, America’s discount cigarette CEO, the king of crumbling strip malls, Nixon’s former lawyer who moved to Neverland, a fracking crazy oilman who attributes rising stock prices to Trump, a second generation Goldman-Sachs investment banker, and a corporate raider who profited from both the 2008 crash and 9/11.”

NEW: Trump’s New Advisor Suggested America Make ‘Peace With The Muslim World’ By Dropping An Atomic Bomb

The list of advisors includes Tom Barrack, Andy Beal, Stephen M. Calk, Steve Feinberg, Harold Hamm, Howard Lorber, Steve Mnuchin, John Paulson, Wilbur Ross, Steve Roth, Dan DiMicco, David Malpass, Stephen Moore, and Peter Navarro.

As many have noted, the list does include five “Steves.”

UPDATE:
Peter Navarro’s personal website states he is “a distinguished keynote speaker and corporate trainer,” and “holds a Ph.D. in economics from Harvard University and has been a business professor at the University of California-Irvine for more than 20 years,” which does not make him a professional economist.
Thomas Barrack’s bio at Forbes states he is the “grandson of Lebanese immigrants to Los Angeles,” and ThinkProgress has updated their article to note they “incorrectly identified Barrack as white.”

 

Image by Disney | ABC Television Group via Flickr and a CC license