‘Good Lord Terrible Idea’ Says a Dartmouth Economics Professor
President Donald Trump has awarded Stephen Moore with the offer of a seat on the Federal Reserve’s Board of Governors. Moore, best known as a cable news “economic analyst” last year called for Trump to be awarded the Nobel prize for economics. He served as a top Trump campaign economic advisor.
Moore once was the chief economist for The Heritage Foundation, a far right wing think tank that is closely intertwined with the Trump administration. For unknown reasons that title was changed. He is now a “distinguished visiting fellow.”
The Wall Street Journal Friday morning reported that “Mr. Trump spoke to Mr. Moore to compliment the economic commentator on an opinion article he co-authored last week calling the Fed Chairman Jerome Powell’s policy moves a threat to the U.S. economy. The article was published in The Wall Street Journal, where Mr. Moore previously worked as an editorial-page writer.”
Also unclear are Moore’s qualifications.
He was the Founding President of the union-busting Club for Growth, which reportedly has received funding from the Koch Brothers. And he is listed as “the senior economic contributor for FreedomWorks,” which, in its original form was a Koch Brothers project.
“Under its original name, Citizens for a Sound Economy, FreedomWorks received $12 million of its own from Koch family foundations,” The New York Times reported in 2010.
But at least one actual economist has accused Moore (along with all of Trump’s economic advisors) of not being an actual economist.
Public reception of Moore is not always the best.
Dartmouth economics professor Danny (David) Branchflower weighed in on the news:
University of Oregon Economic Professor Mark Thoma in 2007 wrote an article titled, “Is Stephen Moore ‘That Stupid’?”
The Daily Banter in 2016 published a piece titled, “Donald Trump’s Senior Economic Adviser is a F*cking Idiot.”
A not insignificant number of people on Twitter apparently have called him a “crackpot.” Among them, the editor-in-chief of the Danish financial news website EuroInvestor:
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This article has been updated to explain to readers the Koch Brothers’ relationship to FreedomWorks.