March 12, 2014

"Stanley Fischer is the kindest, warmest, bravest, most wonderful human being I've ever known in my life" (Cont.)

From the New York Times:
Stanley Fischer, Fed Nominee, Has Long History of Policy Leadership 
By BINYAMIN APPELBAUM    MARCH 12, 2014

WASHINGTON — Stanley Fischer has worked for much of his professional life to improve economic policy in the developing world. Now he is on the verge of a new role in a country with plenty of economic problems of its own: the United States. 
Mr. Fischer, nominated by President Obama to serve as vice chairman of the Federal Reserve, is likely to move quickly through a confirmation process that begins with a hearing before the Senate Banking Committee on Thursday morning. 
Assuming Mr. Fischer successfully negotiates that gantlet, he would join Janet L. Yellen, the Fed’s new chairwoman, in the difficult work of figuring out how much more the Fed can do to help the economy recover from the Great Recession. 
Ms. Yellen proposed his selection to the White House. ... 
Genial, courtly, self-effacing, Mr. Fischer is skilled at making sharp points without making enemies. 
Lawrence H. Summers, a former Treasury secretary, suggested at a November conference held by the International Monetary Fund in Mr. Fischer’s honor that there were fewer financial crises in the decades after World War II because people acted prudently. 
“Larry,” Mr. Fischer responded, “I wonder whether the 35 years after World War II had something to do with the fact that financial liberalization hadn’t yet happened.” 
Mr. Fischer’s prepared remarks before the Senate committee, released by the committee on Wednesday, focused on the importance of the Fed’s role as a financial regulator. “The Great Recession has driven home the lesson that the Fed has not only to fulfill its dual mandate, but also to contribute its part to the maintenance of the stability of the financial system,” he said. 
Mr. Fischer, now 70, is a widely respected figure in the world of economic policy. 
His academic work in the 1970s helped to provide the intellectual justification for today’s activist monetary policy. His students included the recently retired Fed chairman, Ben S. Bernanke, and Mario Draghi, head of the European Central Bank. 
He subsequently began a career in policy-making, including a stint as second-in-command at the I.M. F. during the 1990s and, most recently, an eight-year run as governor of the Bank of Israel, a job he left in June. 
Along the way, Mr. Fischer, born into a family of shopkeepers in a small town in present-day Zambia, in a home without running water, amassed a fortune as the author of a best-selling economics textbook and a senior executive at Citigroup. 
Mr. Fischer in December disclosed assets worth $14.6 million to $56.3 million, including a residence in New York worth at least $5 million. He said that he would divest some stock and investment holdings if he were confirmed. 
Mr. Fischer has said that his upbringing in Mazabuka, then part of the British colony of Northern Rhodesia, imbued him with a passion for economic development.  
“One of the things that got me interested in economics, peculiarly, was that Dag Hammarskjöld was an economist,” Mr. Fischer recalled in a 2004 interview with his friend Olivier Blanchard, now the chief economist at the I.M.F. “When I was in high school, Dag Hammarskjöld was this great man. Then he was killed in the then-Belgian Congo, right next door. I knew he had done good in the world and my parents had brought me up to believe I should do good in the world. I realized that economics would help you do good.”
Mr. Fischer came to America in the late 1960s for a doctorate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, then spent nearly two decades there as a professor of economics. His most famous work was a 1977 paper that helped to ignite a revival of the idea that central banks can stimulate economic activity. He became an American citizen in 1976. 
He turned to policy-making in the late 1980s — a change Mr. Bernanke and others would describe as an inspiration in their own careers — by joining the World Bank as chief economist. Then, after a brief return to academia, the Clinton administration secured his appointment as the I.M.F.’s first deputy managing director. 
Developing nations were hit by a series of financial crises during Mr. Fischer’s time at the fund, and the changes in economic policy that the I.M.F. required from countries seeking its help remain controversial. The fund’s typical demands included reductions in domestic spending and greater openness to foreign investment. Critics argue that many of the changes did more harm than good. 
“Tens of millions of people were unnecessarily thrown into poverty,” said Mark Weisbrot, co-director of the liberal Center for Economic and Policy Research. He said the United States suffered, too, as those countries devalued currencies and pumped out cheap exports, driving trade deficits to record heights. 
“Did he ever admit that they were wrong in the Asian crisis?” Mr. Weisbrot asked of Mr. Fischer. “If he’s never admitted that, then I wouldn’t trust him.”

Of course, there was another financial crisis in 1998 -- in Russia -- but Fischer's sizable role in Russian policy in the seven years before Russia's 1998 default has disappeared down the Memory Hole. But Russia hasn't been in the news much recently, so who could possibly remember to ask Fischer about his role in Russian policy in 1991-1998?
Mr. Fischer’s tenure as a Citigroup executive between 2002 and 2005 also has drawn scrutiny from Democratic senators who favor stronger limits on big banks. 
“I’d never been in a private sector and it interested me,” Mr. Fischer said in 2004.
He led the bank’s public sector advisory group and served as president of Citigroup International, overseeing the bank’s foreign operations, working under a contract that allowed him to leave for a “high-level” government job without surrendering the value of his stock options. When Israel called in late 2004, he left. 
Senator Sherrod Brown, an Ohio Democrat, has said that he plans to ask Mr. Fischer what he learned on Wall Street and how it would influence his work at the Fed. 
Mr. Fischer became an Israeli citizen in 2005 while retaining his American citizenship, but he already had deep ties to the country, and he insisted on speaking Hebrew there from the outset. His arrival was compared by one local paper to the acquisition of the Brazilian soccer great Ronaldinho by an Israeli team. 
Although the Israeli economy swooned during the global financial crisis, it never fell into recession. Mr. Fischer cut interest rates quickly at the beginning of the crisis and, breaking with the I.M.F. playbook he had helped to write, he built up foreign reserves to limit the rise of the shekel. 
Shlomo Maital, a professor at the Technion Institute of Management, credited Mr. Fischer with “navigating Israel through the global financial crisis that began in 2008, more or less unscathed, by clever manipulation of interest rates and impeccable timing.” 
Mr. Fischer also worked quietly to preserve the Palestinian banking system and, when he stepped down last year, both Israeli and Palestinian officials mourned his departure. 
While Mr. Fischer has avoided public speaking in recent months, there have been glimpses of his views. The former secretary of the Treasury Robert Rubin said last week that he had made a $1 bet with Mr. Fischer about the economy’s performance in 2014. Mr. Rubin said he was the pessimist, while Mr. Fischer was more optimistic. 
“I think he’s good for the money,” Mr. Rubin joked. “I know I am.”

Robert Rubin, Larry Summers ... thank God America doesn't have oligarchs like Russia does instead of our disinterested public servants like these former Treasury Secretaries.

      

36 comments:

Reg Cæsar said...

Mr. Fischer in December disclosed assets worth $14.6 million to $56.3 million,…

…because even the world's top economic minds have difficulty estimating their net worth within half an order of magnitude.

Or maybe he's using some tribal counting system taught in his plumbing-free Zambian grade school.

ATBOTL said...

Let me summarize:

"...Fischer...Applebaum...Yellen...Bloomberg...Summers, Bernanke...Wesibrot...Maital...Rubin..."

Is this an newspaper article or a page from he Tel Aviv phone book?

Chicago said...

Beware of those who claim they want to "do good in the world". Utopians have caused more misery in the world than anything else. I'd feel better if he just said he did it for the money. Of course, it's probably just baloney anyway. Hagiographic write-ups like that usually trigger the gag reflex. Shameless, just shameless.

Uncle Peregrine said...

Your title reminds us how easy it is to slip back into Cold War ways of thinking, as both sides are doing now doing over Ukraine. I write this even as I'm listening to Czech and Hungarian CDs in preparation for a trip to Central Europe.

Anonymous said...

"Genial, courtly, self-effacing, Mr. Fischer is skilled at making sharp points without making enemies."

Sounds like a caricature from the Middle Ages.

Gilbert P.

Anonymous said...

"Anonymous Ukraine hack correspondence of US Army Attache Assistant in Kiev and discover a plot against Ukraine"

https://www.cyberguerrilla.org/blog/?p=17628

"We have hacked e-mail correspondence of US Army Attache Assistant in Kiev Jason Gresh and a high ranking official from Ukrainian General Staff Igor Protsyk.

It appears that they are planning to conduct a series of attacks on Ukrainian military bases in order to destabilize the situation in Ukraine.

Particularly, Jason Gresh writes to Igor Protsyk that it’s time to implement a plan that implies “causing problems to the transport hubs in the south-east of Ukraine in order to frame-up the neighbor. It will create favorable conditions for Pentagon to act”, says Jason Gresh."

Anonymous said...

" Hacked Email from U.S. Army Attache in Ukraine - For False Flags to occur so U.S. can take military action against Russia "

http://sherriequestioningall.blogspot.ch/2014/03/hacked-email-from-us-army-attache-in.html

anony-mouse said...

Isn't this an HBD site? Would you rather have people of Australian Aborigine background at Treasury?

And since we've already ascertained (haven't we?) that intelligence isn't randomly distributed, you would assume that people with a high IQ and an inherent proclivity for finance would be in high financial positions.

Wouldn't you?

Or is this site merely made up of people who find it quite right that people with lower IQ's than themselves don't do well, but that, gosh darn, its so unfair that people with higher IQ's than themselves are so better off.

Sort of like the people who believe that very high marginal tax rates should start exactly one penny above their own annual income.

Mr. Anon said...

Why doesn't anyone bring up the fact that we've never had a black Fed chairman, or deputy chairman? It's obviously due to institutional racism.

Steve Sailer said...

There was a black governor on the Federal Reserve Board when I was a little kid: LBJ appointed Andrew Brimmer, a sharecropper's son, in 1966.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Brimmer

Carter appointed a black governor in 1979, Emmett Rice, father of Susan Rice of the Obama Administration.

Steve Sailer said...

Looks like the third black was Roger Ferguson (1997), but there haven't been any blacks on the Fed board for most of a decade.

Anonymous said...

"Isn't this an HBD site? Would you rather have people of Australian Aborigine background at Treasury?"

1) Yah boo sucks

2) What's worse:

a) high IQ + low stewardship

b) average IQ + average stewardship

3) When the media stops attacking white people (and only white people) for benefiting from disparate impact you'll have a point.

.

"It appears that they are planning to conduct a series of attacks on Ukrainian military bases in order to destabilize the situation in Ukraine."

Crimea nearly complete then.

notsaying said...

We can examine Stanley Fischer's past and wonder what he'll do.

But surely the bigger point here is that he's even been nominated for this position.

That anybody would even consider making a dual citizen -- and one who did not receive that dual citizenhip until 2004 -- shows how little our leaders care about citizenship, its rights and privileges. To them, it's all about the "global citizenship" of their fellow elites, which puts a premium on loyalty to the global .01% and their efforts to control business, government and people across the globe.

Where oh where can we find leaders willing to put us, our scholars, our managers, our workerss first?

J said...

Stanley shows that people from the darkest heart of Africa, like Mazabuka in Zimbabwe, have the potential to become world recognized economic leaders. Who knows how many other Africans in the villages of Zimbabwe and Congo and Equatorial Guinea are being denied the development of their full potential. The world is missing their contribution. And why is this so if not because of colonialism? What else can be the reason?

Anonymous said...

I'd like to see more Armenians on the Federal Reserve Illuminati ... Board.

little dynamo said...

Manchuriated and Marinated is right.



With zombie obambie as king of diamonds.

jody said...

binyamin appelbaum
stanley fischer
janet yellin
lawrence summers
ben bernanke

and that's just the part of the article posted on isteve.

Rifleman said...

ATBOTL said...

Let me summarize:

"...Fischer...Applebaum...Yellen...Bloomberg...Summers, Bernanke...Wesibrot...Maital...Rubin..."

Is this an newspaper article or a page from he Tel Aviv phone book?


LOL. You beat me to it.

Mr. Anon said...

Why doesn't anyone bring up the fact that we've never had a black Fed chairman, or deputy chairman? It's obviously due to institutional racism.


There will be and when it happens I'm guessing he will come from THESE people.

Peter the Shark said...

Mr. Fischer cut interest rates quickly at the beginning of the crisis and, breaking with the I.M.F. playbook he had helped to write, he built up foreign reserves to limit the rise of the shekel.

Sums it up nicely. What's good for Israel is good for the world. Nothing else matters.

ATBOTL said...

"There will be and when it happens I'm guessing he will come from THESE people."

Not if they get sterilized first:

http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/an-inconveivable-crime.premium-1.484110

anony-mouse:

How has letting your people run our economy worked out so far?

The Anti-Gnostic said...

Another angle to this is how blatant and hilarious it's getting to see all the hagiography over a vice chairman of the Fed. Yellen must be striking a lot of journalists as pretty uninteresting.

The Anti-Gnostic said...

Executive level appointees in the Obama administration are likewise striking for the lack of black faces.

Which gets me thinking, the rumors about the First Couple splitting up as soon as they leave the White House are probably true. Michelle seems about half an SD lower in IQ and just "blacker" in outlook and temperament.

Barack's probably wondering why he didn't buckle down and make partner somewhere. He'd be married to that white girl from Vermont and playing golf three days a week.

Anonymous said...

Did he retain his Zambian citizenship? Or did he have British citizenship? Did he retain his British passport if he had one?

goatweed

Gene Berman said...

notsaying:

Your opinion and the fact that it's so widely shared over the entire world (in direct contravention of everything known of economic realities)is a main reason for numerous and constant hostilities.

Hunsdon said...

Anony-mouse said: And since we've already ascertained (haven't we?) that intelligence isn't randomly distributed, you would assume that people with a high IQ and an inherent proclivity for finance would be in high financial positions.

Hunsdon said: Why you gotta go there, man? This is the proof that anti-Semitism is the evil that never dies. This is the pogroms, all over again. Oh, "an inherent proclivity for finance"? C'mon, tell me your real name. It's Streicher, isn't it? This is the Black Hundreds. This is the Protocols, only on the internet. This is Shylock, tinged with Fagin.

Frankly, I thought better of you.

Hunsdon said...

From the article: Mr. Fischer cut interest rates quickly at the beginning of the crisis and, breaking with the I.M.F. playbook he had helped to write, he built up foreign reserves to limit the rise of the shekel.

Hunsdon said: Strict rules, rigorously applied. Anyone want to bet the IMF proscription for Ukraine follows the playbook?

Anonymous said...

So, the Federal Reserve now mimics the movie "Mean Girls", where the protagonist is a true African-American.

Karen: “If you’re from Africa, why are you white?”

Gretchen: "Oh my God, Karen, you can't just ask people why they're white."

Steve, I apologize for lowering the tenor of this post, but I could not resist.

Steve from Detroit.

Abe Fauxman said...

I'm pleased to note that Mr. Fisher lays to rest the old anti-Semitic canard that Jews edict harsh laws for the goyim, which they themselves don't follow.

Mr. Fischer cut interest rates quickly at the beginning of the crisis and, breaking with the I.M.F. playbook he had helped to write, he built up foreign reserves to limit the rise of the shekel.

Mr. Anon said...

"anony-mouse said...

Isn't this an HBD site? Would you rather have people of Australian Aborigine background at Treasury?"

Yeah, because those are the only two conceivable choices, aren't they? Israeli dual nationals, or Bushmen.

Do you mean to say that there is not a single gentile American - not one! - who can perform the job of chairman or deputy chairman of the Fed?

Mr. Anon said...

"anony-mouse said...

Isn't this an HBD site? Would you rather have people of Australian Aborigine background at Treasury?"

Human Bio-Diversity means just that - a recognition that different groups of humans are different. It does not mean that we should worship people with a high IQ, nor does it mean that we should check our ethnic loyalties at the door. Certainly one tribe of people never seem to dispense with their ethnic loyalties. So why shouldn't I do the same?

By the way - disingenuousness, when practiced often enough, amounts to just plain lying.

Joseph Dooley said...

His academic work in the 1970s helped to provide the intellectual justification for today’s activist monetary policy. His students included the recently retired Fed chairman, Ben S. Bernanke, and Mario Draghi, head of the European Central Bank.

If that were the answer in Jeopardy!, the question would be: What disqualifies Fischer from the Fed post?

Abe Fauxman said...

Mr. Sailer, your raising the question of Mr. Fisher's loyalty is one of the vilest anti-Semitic canard.

“It’s a win-win situation for us,” Israeli Finance Minister Yuval Steinitz said in an interview with Army Radio. “If he wins, it brings honor to the State of Israel, and he will also be working on our behalf on an international level.

Anonymous said...

Will somebody in the American media ask what role Fischer will play in AIPAC's efforts to impose sanctions on Iran? From Kevin macdonalds blog

as Bank of Israel governor, Stanley Fischer played a central role in coordinating the implementation of AIPAC-generated sanctions against Iran—ostensibly over its nuclear program. Stuart Levey, the head of the U.S. Treasury Department’s division for “Terrorism and Financial Intelligence,” an office created after heavy AIPAC lobbying, met often with Fischer in Israel alongside the Prime Minister, Foreign Minister and chiefs of both the Mossad and Shin Bet to explore how to “supplement” UN sanctions and end-run Russian and Chinese opposition.[v] The Levey-Fischer strategy was “to work outside the context of the Security Council to engage the private sector and let it know about the risks of doing business with Tehran” particularly against European banks that had only partially drawn back their business dealings with Iran. In 2010, Israel dispatched Fischer to meet with Chinese and Russian “counterparts” in order to financially isolate Iran.[vi]


Although AIPAC never mentions it, American exporters have been seriously hurt by sanctions on Iran and the punitive secondary boycott. A coalition representing the US Chamber of Commerce, the Business Roundtable, Coalition for American Trade, the National Foreign Trade Council and others urged Congress not to enact sanctions provisions they estimated would cost $25 billion and 210,000 American jobs. (PDF) Keeping such a costly regime in place despite thawing relations and any hard evidence of an Iranian nuclear weaponization program has therefore required immense ongoing efforts by Israel lobbying groups.

ATBOTL said...

"His academic work in the 1970s helped to provide the intellectual justification for today’s activist monetary policy. His students included the recently retired Fed chairman, Ben S. Bernanke, and Mario Draghi, head of the European Central Bank."

This is the other absurd element to the elite/media consensus on who should be running our economy. Our economy has been badly mismanaged, yet only the very people who are responsible are being considered for open positions. Bizarrely, the establishment touts the fact these people are the ones who implemented the failed policies as justification for hiring them.

This can't go on forever anymore than the housing bubble could.

Anonymous said...

Yeah, because those are the only two conceivable choices, aren't they? Israeli dual nationals, or Bushmen.

Eskimos.

Anonymous said...

"Barack's probably wondering why he didn't buckle down and make partner somewhere. He'd be married to that white girl from Vermont and playing golf three days a week."

And I can't believe after all these years how anybody could believe he'd be married to any girl (other than M.O., a political necessity.)

oh well, it'll all come out in the wash