Alan Greenspan, former head of the Federal Reserve, canceled a speech on monetary policy two days after economist Paul Krugman called him the “worst ex-chairman ever.”
The nixed appearance is the latest example of liberal efforts to silence honest debate about the government’s role in the economy, writes journalist Seth Lipsky in a
column for The Wall Street Journal.
“Krugman has emerged as an apologist for the Fed and for Mr. Greenspan’s successor, Ben Bernanke, on whose watch the value of the dollar plunged a staggering 53.1 percent against gold,” Lipsky writes. “That’s the second steepest plunge under any Fed chairman; the dollar shed 80.1 percent of its value under the hapless Arthur Burns from 1970-78.”
Krugman
on May 6 assailed Greenspan for planning to speak at an event hosted by the American Principles Project, a Washington-based think tank whose chairman is a conservative Catholic, Sean Fieler. The conference is scheduled to coincide this summer with the annual Federal Reserve retreat in Jackson Hole, Wyo.
Krugman blasted the American Principles Project for combining “social conservatism — it’s anti-gay-marriage, anti-abortion rights, and pro-‘religious liberty’ — with goldbug economic doctrine.” He also said Greenspan “has been an inflation and debt fear monger, helping to make his successor’s already hard job a bit harder.”
Lipsky says Krugman’s real agenda is to stifle open debate about U.S. monetary policy as Congress considers measures to expand oversight of the Federal Reserve. The central bank's policies have been criticized for pumping up asset bubbles that eventually burst and trigger job-killing recessions.
“Krugman, who has devoted his column inches to plumping for inflation, is scared of critics who comprehend that there is a moral dimension to the question of money,” Lipsky writes of the debate about the Fed’s role in steering inflation and unemployment.
He suggests that Paul Volcker, the former Fed chair who set out to tackle runaway inflation in the 1980s, speak at the upcoming conference.
“One thing we learned about him in the 1980s, when even some of the supply-siders were screaming about his attack on inflation, is that he knows how to stand his ground,” Lipsky says. “He would not be scared off by the likes of Paul Krugman.”
© 2023 Newsmax Finance. All rights reserved.