As news trickled out of President Trump intention to nominate “Trumponomics” author, Heritage Foundation fellow and CNN contributor Stephen Moore to the Federal Reserve board, economists and economic journalists alike responded with bewilderment.
According to Bloomberg News, Moore’s nomination ham-handedly fell into place in true Trump fashion. Last week, White House Economic Council Director Larry Kudlow showed Trump one of Moore’s latest op-eds in the Wall Street Journal in which Moore blamed the Federal Reserve for slowing the U.S. economy and cheered Trump’s economic policies.
A week later, to the shock of economists across Twitter, here we are.
Justin Wolfers, University of Michigan economic professor and fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, let Judith Viorst express his disdain for him: “It’s a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad pick.”
In a Twitter thread Wolfers pointed to several instances in which Moore has made botched assessments of the economy, including recently when he warned the U.S. economy was “in the midst of deflation (We’re not.)” he said.
Here's my challenge to any informed voter of any partisan leaning: Call your favorite economist. Whether they're left, right, libertarian or socialist, none of them will endorse Stephen Moore for the Fed. He's manifestly unqualified.
— Justin Wolfers (@JustinWolfers) March 22, 2019
Here he is Stephen Moore recently, warning that we're in the midst of deflation. (We're not.)https://t.co/O0q8USJNe5
(Worth watching mostly to see @crampell not so very patiently explaining to him at 2:10 that falling soybean prices are not deflation.)— Justin Wolfers (@JustinWolfers) March 22, 2019
Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman, who is a columnist at the New York Times, called Moore a “hack,” as did many others, and tweeted out an article by the Columbia Journalism Review about how Moore has been wrong on so many occasions that some publications now refuse to publish his work.
The Columbia Journalism Review reported on this, and why some papers won't print him anymore. So put him in charge of the economy instead? 2/ https://t.co/hCnte39Eer
— Paul Krugman (@paulkrugman) March 22, 2019
Bruce Bartlett, who served as a domestic policy adviser to President Ronald Reagan and in the Treasury Department under President George H. W. Bush, took a similar tone, claiming Moore knows “absolutely nothing” about the board that he’s been nominated to nor “monetary policy.”
Trump eyes Stephen Moore for Fed governor https://t.co/NkOnl8z25b Trust me, Steve knows absolutely nothing about the Federal Reserve or monetary policy.
— Bruce Bartlett (@BruceBartlett) March 22, 2019
Even Washington Post columnist Catherine Rampell, a fellow CNN economic contributor who has been cheered far and wide on Twitter for destroying Moore in CNN segments — weighed in on her colleague’s appointment.
None of this bodes well for preservation of central bank independence if Moore gets a Fed seat.
Moore often scaremongers about the risk of turning into Venezuela; but putting politicians or their political minions in charge of the printing press is the swiftest way to get there.— Catherine Rampell (@crampell) March 22, 2019
Several journalists were also skeptical of Moore’s nomination.
Washington Post fact checker Glenn Kessler raised the irony of Moore’s credentials.
Of note: Moore has only a master's degree in economics. The GOP in 2011 blocked an Obama nominee who had earned a Nobel Memorial Prize in economics. https://t.co/urgy52IMVL
— Glenn Kessler (@GlennKesslerWP) March 22, 2019
Jonathan Chait, who writes for New York magazine, didn’t mince his words on the Moore news:
I've been following Trump's new Fed nominee for more than twenty years. He is not a smart person. https://t.co/63zCvZa7Wk
— Jonathan Chait (@jonathanchait) March 22, 2019
Mark Dow, a global macro trader who previously worked for the U.S. Treasury Department, offered this cheeky assessment:
Getting asked a lot about Stephen Moore. Here's the TL;DR:
Think Larry Kudlow, then subtract honestly, common sense and intellectual horsepower
— Dow (@mark_dow) March 22, 2019
So he’s the Douglas Feith of the economics game?
Wait! Didn’t he correctly predict 10 out of the last 5 recessions? He’s a genius!
Whose motorcycle is that?
It’s Fed’s.
Who’s Fed?
Fed’s dead, baby, Fed’s dead.
He used Trump’s name in his book title — Trumpinomics! Nothing else matters to Donnie. He must be a genius!
Must be a day that ends in “y”