braddelong.substack.com/p/reading-john…
No. There is neither a transcript nor a video nor an audio of John Cochrane's 2008 CRISP Forum keynote at the Gleacher Center. It appears to have been deep-sixed. All we have of it appears to be Cochrane’s declaration—made at a time when the share... 1/
No. There is neither a transcript nor a video nor an audio of John Cochrane's 2008 CRISP Forum keynote at the Gleacher Center. It appears to have been deep-sixed. All we have of it appears to be Cochrane’s declaration—made at a time when the share... 1/
... of the U.S. labor force in construction was below its long-run average and had been below its long-run average for fifteen months—that: “we should have a recession. People who spend their lives pounding nails in Nevada need something else to do.” No recognition at all... 2/
...that the structural-adjustment climb-down from the housing boom had already taken place. No recognition that structural adjustment takes place by pulling people into high-value jobs, not by pushing them out of low-value jobs into zero-value non-jobs. No recognition at... 3/
...all: John Lippert (2008–12–23): Bloomberg: ‘John Cochrane was steaming as word of U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson’s plan to buy $700 billion in troubled mortgage assets rippled across the University of Chicago in September. Cochrane had been teaching at the bastion... 4/
...of free-market economics for 14 years and this struck at everything that he—and the school—stood for. “We all wandered the hallway thinking, How could this possibly make sense?” says Cochrane, 51, recalling his incredulity at Paulson’s attempt to prop up the mortgage... 5/
...industry and the banks that had precipitated the housing market’s boom and bust. During a lunch held on a balcony with a view of Rockefeller Memorial Chapel, Cochrane, son-in-law of Chicago efficient-market theorist Eugene Fama, and some colleagues made their stand... 6/
...They wrote a petition attacking Paulson’s proposal, sent it to economists nationwide and collected 230 signatures. Republican Senator Richard Shelby of Alabama waved the document as he scorned the rescue. When Congress rejected it on Sept. 29, Cochrane fired off... 7/
...congratulatory e-mails. The victory was short-lived. Lawmakers approved the plan four days later, swayed by what Cochrane calls a pinata of pork-barrel amendments. “We should have a recession,” Cochrane said in November, speaking to students and investors in a conference... 8/
...room that looks out on Lake Michigan. “People who spend their lives pounding nails in Nevada need something else to do”... 9/END
• • •
Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to
force a refresh
