Warren Mosler

Post-Keynesian economics
Warren Mosler speaking at War and Poverty, Peace and Prosperity Conference at the Levy Economics Institute
Born	(1949-09-18) September 18, 1949 (age 62)
Nationality	United States
Field	Modern Monetary Theory, Macroeconomics, Monetary policy
Alma mater	University of Connecticut (B.A.)

Warren Mosler (born September 18, 1949) is an American economist, president and founder of Mosler Automotive, and co-founder of the Center for Full Employment And Price Stability at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. He briefly ran for President of the United States as a member of the Democratic Party in the 2012 election before dropping out to run for U.S. Senate.

Background[link]

Mosler spent his early life in Manchester, Connecticut and was initially employed in Hartford before moving to New York City to work on Wall Street. In 1982, he began a hedge fund, which by the 1990s was largely turned over to his partners. Later, he relocated to the U.S. Virgin Islands to participate in a government-sponsored economic growth initiative.^[1]

Academically, he is known for his writings on Modern Monetary Theory, an economic theory that describes the way fiat money is created and utilized in modern economies.

Political campaigns[link]

In February 2009, Mosler declared his candidacy with the Federal Elections Commission to run for the office of President of The United States as an independent.^[2] In April 2010, he withdrew^[3] to run in the United States Senate election in Connecticut, 2010^[1], briefly as a Democrat, but ultimately as an independent. In the final tally he received 0.98% of the vote.

Personal life[link]

Warren Mosler resides in St. Croix in the United States Virgin Islands.

References[link]

External links[link]

• Center for Full Employment and Price Stability
• The Center of the Universe: Warren Mosler's blog
• Warren Mosler Interview on The George Jarkesy Show

This biography of an American economist is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. v t e

Sheila Bair
Chairperson of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation
In office June 26, 2006 – July 8, 2011
President	George W. Bush Barack Obama
Preceded by	Martin Gruenberg (Acting)
Succeeded by	Martin Gruenberg (Acting)
Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Financial Markets
In office 2001–2002
President	George W. Bush
Preceded by	Richard Carnell
Succeeded by	Wayne Abernathy
Chairperson of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission Acting
In office August 21, 1993 – December 21, 1993
President	Bill Clinton
Preceded by	William Albrecht (Acting)
Succeeded by	Barbara Holum (Acting)
Personal details
Born	(1954-04-03) April 3, 1954 (age 58) Wichita, Kansas, U.S.
Political party	Republican
Spouse(s)	Scott Cooper
Alma mater	University of Kansas, Lawrence
Profession	Lawyer
Religion	Lutheranism

Sheila Colleen Bair^[1] (born April 3, 1954)^[2] was the 19th Chairperson of the U.S. Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC).^[3] She was appointed to the post for a five-year term on June 26, 2006 by George W. Bush. Bair served as a member of the FDIC Board of Directors through July 8, 2011.^[4]

Early life[link]

Bair is a native of Independence, Kansas. Her father, Albert, was a surgeon. Her mother, Clara, was a nurse and housewife. She received her bachelor's degree in philosophy from the University of Kansas in 1975,^[5] and worked as a bank teller for a brief period, before receiving a J.D. from the University of Kansas School of Law in 1978. In 1981, she was recruited by Senator Bob Dole, a Republican from her state, to serve as counsel on his staff in Washington.

Career[link]

Prior to her appointment at the FDIC, Bair was the Dean's Professor of Financial Regulatory Policy for the Isenberg School of Management at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, a post she had held since 2002. She also served as Assistant Secretary for Financial Institutions at the U.S. Department of the Treasury (2001 to 2002), Senior Vice President for Government Relations of the New York Stock Exchange (1995 to 2000), a Commissioner and Acting Chair of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (1991 to 1995), and Research Director, Deputy Counsel and Counsel to Kansas Republican Senate Majority Leader Robert Dole (1981 to 1988). While an academic, Bair also served on the FDIC's Advisory Committee on Banking Policy. Bair also pursued a seat in the U.S. Congress (she lost the 1990 Republican nomination in the 5th Kansas district by 760 votes to Dick Nichols).^{[6][dead link]} Bair began her career in the General Counsel's office of the former US Department of Health, Education and Welfare.^[7] Ms. Bair left the FDIC on July 8, 2011, when her five year term expired.^[8] She became a senior advisor to The Pew Charitable Trusts in August 2011.^[9]

Bair has published two books for children: Rock, Brock and the Savings Shock (2006) and Isabel's Car Wash (2008). Both titles show children good examples of money management.

Bair is married to Scott P. Cooper and has two children, Preston and Colleen.

2008 financial crisis[link]

Bair assumed a prominent role in the government’s response to the crisis, including bolstering public confidence and system stability that resulted in no runs on bank deposits. The FDIC did not turn to taxpayer borrowing to manage its losses and liquidity needs, instead funding them through its traditional means of assessing banks for the cost of insuring their deposits. The FDIC’s resolution practice of selling failing banks to healthier institutions, while providing credit support of future losses from failed banks’ troubled loans, saved the FDIC’s Deposit Insurance Fund $40 billion over losses it would have incurred if the FDIC had liquidated those banks.

During the congressional effort to reform the financial regulatory system, Bair successfully pushed to establish tools to end the doctrine of “too big to fail” by extending the FDIC’s resolution process to large, systemically-important financial institutions. The FDIC was also given joint authority to order the restructuring of an entity that cannot demonstrate, though a continually-monitored “living will,” that it can be unwound.

Bair is active on the international front, and pressed the Basel Committee on Bank Supervision to adopt strong capital and leverage standards, as Bloomberg BusinessWeek reported.^[10]

In a fictional TV movie about the crises, Patricia Randell played Bair in the 2011 HBO movie Too Big to Fail, which was based on the popular book of the same name by New York Times journalist Andrew Ross Sorkin.

Opinion[link]

In 2009, Bair was named one of Time magazine’s “Time 100” most influential people. In 2008, Bair topped The Wall Street Journal’s annual 50 “Women to Watch List.” In 2008 and 2009, Forbes ranked her as the second most powerful woman in the world behind German chancellor Angela Merkel. Forbes described her FDIC office as "the last stop for capital-starved banks (and their insured customers) before going under."^[11]

Criticism[link]

Bair has received criticism for her outspoken style and what some^[who?] saw as her single-minded defense of the FDIC’s deposit insurance fund in the heat of the response to the financial meltdown in 2008. The FDIC was sued by Judicial Watch twice seeking information regarding the FDIC decision jointly with the Federal Reserve and Treasury Department to “bailout” Citi. The litigants say the FDIC was refusing to provide any information on the reasons for its support of the bailouts of certain banks stemming from the Financial Crisis of 2008, and continues to do so. Judge Emmett G. Sullivan of the US District Court (DC) said the case was not moot because the litigants continued to contest whether the FDIC reasonably interpreted the scope of his request. The FDIC says the court specifically gave the FDIC the option to submit additional evidence demonstrating that its original search was complete. The FDIC says it has done so, and the issue of the scope of the search is now before the Court.^[12][13]

In addition to the legal proceedings, Bair has made the following remark, which spoke to the FDIC’s lack of statutory authority pre Dodd-Frank. In a response to the Inspector General for the TARP program, Bair remarked, "We were told by the New York Fed that problems would occur in the global markets if Citi were to fail. We didn't have our own information to verify this statement, so I didn't want to dispute that with them." In 2008, the FDIC did not have the legal authority to put large holding companies into its bank receivership process and little authority to access information outside of the insured institutions. Since these were holding companies, and not banks, the FDIC had to rely on information from other regulators. That is no longer the case. In 2010, the Dodd-Frank Act was enacted, expressly prohibiting bank bailouts by extending the FDIC’s resolution authority to close the largest financial firms and make their shareholders and creditors bear the losses without creating a systemic disruption. Dodd-Frank also gave the FDIC new authority to directly access information from large bank holding companies which are not in sound condition.^{[13] [14]}

In 2009, Bair lobbied hard to have the CEO of Citibank Vikram Pandit fired,^[15][16] failed to do so and was criticized for her efforts ^[17].

Awards[link]

Bair has received many awards, including the John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award and Hubert H. Humphrey Civil Rights Award.^[18]

On March 29, 2012 Bair was honored by the Romney Institute of Public Management (BYU Marriott School of Management) as the Administrator of the Year.^[19][20]. She was awarded an honorary degree from Amherst College in 2012.

References[link]

External links[link]

• Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation website
• FDIC Biography of Bair
• New Yorker profile
• Sheila Bair "exit interview" by Joe Nocera, NY Times, July 9, 2011.

Peter Schiff

Austrian School
Born	(1963-03-23) March 23, 1963 (age 49)
Nationality	United States
Field	Financial Economics
Alma mater	U.C. Berkeley (B.B.A.), 1987[1]
Opposed	John Maynard Keynes,[2] Alan Greenspan,[3][4][5] Ben Bernanke,[6][7][8] Paul Krugman,[9] Christopher Dodd,[10] Barack Obama,[11]
Influences	Irwin Schiff, Ludwig von Mises, F.A. Hayek, Murray Rothbard

Peter David Schiff (pronounced /ˈʃɪf/; born March 23, 1963) is an American businessman, investment broker, author and financial commentator. Schiff is CEO and chief global strategist^[1] of Euro Pacific Capital Inc., a broker-dealer based in Westport, Connecticut^[12] and CEO of Euro Pacific Precious Metals, LLC, a gold and silver dealer based in New York City.^[13]

Schiff frequently appears as a guest on financial television and is often quoted in major financial publications. He is host of The Peter Schiff Show, a radio show broadcast on terrestrial and internet radio. He is a frequent guest on internet radio^[14][15][16] as well as the host of the former podcast Wall Street Unspun.^[14][17] In 2010 Schiff ran as a candidate in the Republican primary for the United States Senate seat from Connecticut.^[18]

Schiff is known for his bearish views on the dollar and dollar denominated assets, while bullish on investment in tangible assets as well as foreign stocks and currencies.

Early life and education[link]

Peter Schiff was born and raised in New Haven, Connecticut. His father, Irwin Schiff, is a prominent figure in the U.S. tax protester movement, currently serving a 13-year sentence for tax evasion.^[19] Peter Schiff attended Beverly Hills High School in California,^[20] and graduated from the University of California, Berkeley in 1987 with a Bachelor's degree in finance and accounting.^[1]

Financial career[link]

Schiff began his career as a financial consultant at a Shearson Lehman Brothers brokerage.^[1] In 1996 Schiff and a partner acquired a small brokerage firm that had been founded in 1980, reincorporated it in California and renamed it Euro Pacific Capital.^[21][22] The company today has more than 15,000 clients^{[citation needed]} and six offices nationwide, with its headquarters in Westport, Connecticut.^[12][21][23]

According to a 2005 article in The Advocate of Stamford, Connecticut Schiff relocated the firm to Darien, Connecticut to find brokers "who think like him". The New York Metropolitan Area, Schiff says, has the biggest concentration of brokers in the country, making it easier to recruit employees.^[24] The company has offices in Newport Beach, California as well as in Scottsdale, Arizona, Palm Beach, Florida, Los Angeles and New York City. Euro Pacific Capital also holds the exclusive rights to broker some Perth Mint gold products in the United States.^[25]

Economic forecasts[link]

Peter Schiff voices strong support for the Austrian School of economic thought, first introduced to him by his father.^{[26][27][28][29]}

2002–2008[link]

In his 2007 book Crash Proof, Schiff wrote that United States economic policies were fundamentally unsound, and predicted that the United States dollar would lose much of its value.^[3] Schiff believed that the imbalance between the amount of goods the U.S. consumed and what it produced would eventually lead to problems for the U.S. economy.^[30][31] As a remedy Schiff favored increased personal savings and production which he said would stimulate economic growth.^[32] Schiff cited the U.S.'s low personal savings rate as one of the causes of its transformation from the world's largest creditor nation in the 1970s to the largest debtor nation in the year 2000.^[33] Schiff attributed the low savings rate to higher inflation and the artificially low interest rates set by the Federal Reserve.^[34]

In a May 2002 interview with Southland Today, Schiff predicted that the economic downturn triggered by the bursting of the dot-com stock market bubble, an event that he had also forecast well in advance, would lead to a bear market likely to last "another 5 to 10 years."^[35][36] Later that year, following a 30% decline in the Dow Jones, Schiff reversed his call, and became bullish on U.S. stocks in nominal terms. However, he remained bearish in gold terms. In November 2002, as Schiff predicted, US stock indexes began a nominal bull market uptrend that held steady for five years,^[37] until reversing course in 2008, when they began a decline to less than half of their peak 2008 values,^[38] followed in 2009 by the Dow climbing 61% from its low point over the following year.^[39] However, priced in gold, U.S. stocks remained in a bear market the entire time. In May of 2002, the date of the Southland Today interview,^[40] the Dow Jones was worth over 34 ounces of gold. By 2011 the Dow fell below 6 ounces of gold, a nine-year decline of over 80%, in line with Schiff’s 2002 forecast.^[41]

In an August 2006 interview he said: "The United States economy is like the Titanic and I am here with the lifeboat trying to get people to leave the ship... I see a real financial crisis coming for the United States."^[42] On December 31, 2006 in debate on Fox News, Schiff forecast that "what's going to happen in 2007" is that "real estate prices are going to come crashing back down to Earth".^[42]

As part of these exchanges on Fox News and his repeated appearances on financial news network CNBC, Schiff had mentioned factors such as speculators and "the absence of lending standards" which are now seen by many^[43][44] to indeed be contributing factors to the housing crisis which began in 2007. On December 13, 2007 in a Bloomberg interview on the show Open Exchange, Schiff further added that he felt that the crisis would extend to the credit card lending industry.^[45] Following this observation, it was soon reported on December 23, 2007 by the Associated Press that "The value of credit card accounts at least 30 days late jumped 26 percent to $17.3 billion in October from a year earlier at 17 large credit card trusts examined by the AP... At the same time, defaults -- when lenders essentially give up hope of ever being repaid and write off the debt -- rose 18 percent to almost $961 million in October, according to filings made by the trusts with the Securities and Exchange Commission."^[46]

Since 2007, Schiff has stated many times that if the government doesn't change course there will be hyperinflation in the US.^[3] Schiff is one of a minority of economists credited with accurately predicting the financial crisis of 2007–2010 while "nearly all [macroeconomists] failed to foresee the recession despite plenty of warning signs".^[47][48] In his book Crash Proof, he described several aspects of the U.S. economy that would lead to a recession.^[3]

A YouTube video entitled "Peter Schiff was right" became popular in late 2008 and 2009.^[49][50] The video consists of a compilation of clips of his many appearances on various financial news programs from networks including CNBC, Fox News, MSNBC and Bloomberg, most of which took place from 2005 to 2007. In the video segments Schiff explains the fundamental problems he saw with the United States economy at that time. Schiff's warnings of a coming economic collapse earned him the moniker "Dr. Doom."^[22][51][52]

2009–present[link]

Despite predictions regarding the housing bubble and automotive industry difficulties coming to fruition, as early as 2009 Schiff was receiving criticism due to the performance of some of his client's accounts in 2008, as well as controversies over the predictions themselves. In January 2009, economic blogger and investment adviser Michael Shedlock reported, "I have talked with many who claim they have invested with Schiff and are down anywhere from 40% to 70% in 2008."^[53] Later that week an article appeared in the Wall Street Journal reporting that Schiff's broker-dealer firm, Euro Pacific Capital Inc., "advised its clients to bet that the dollar would weaken significantly and that foreign stocks would outpace their U.S. peers" and that instead, the dollar advanced against most currencies, "magnifying the losses from foreign stocks Mr. Schiff steered his investors into."^[54]

The Director of Communications at Schiff's investment firm responded to the original Shedlock piece by saying, "While it is true, that our accounts have suffered badly in 2008, a fact that we have never disputed or ran from, [Shedlock's] estimates for the size of our typical client losses are exaggerated and unfair."^[55][56] Schiff personally responded to Shedlock's criticism by saying, "to examine the effectiveness of my investment strategy immediately following a major correction by looking only at those accounts who adopted the strategy at the previous peak is unfair and distortive" and called Shedlock's blog entry "nothing more than an overt advertisement (and a highly deceptive one at that) to use my popularity to advance his career," adding that losses were felt mostly by recent clients and not by others.^[57]

Schiff responded similarly to criticisms made by Wade Slome of Sidoxia Capital Management, LLC. in a September 2009 blog entry entitled, "The Emperor Schiff Has No Clothes."^[36] Schiff stated not only were the losses suffered by his clients in 2008 highly exaggerated, but also that most of those losses have already been recouped, stating that many who were down then are now up, and most long-term clients were never down at all, but merely temporarily lost some of the profits they had earned over the years.^[36]

The January 2009 Wall Street Journal article discussed the value of Schiff's predictions, and stated how deficiencies "made mincemeat of investors who took his advice in 2008."^[54] In an interview the following week Schiff likened himself to billionaire investor Warren Buffett, saying they were both "buy and hold" long-term investors. Contrasting his negative press he compared claims about accounts managed under Schiff's firm to the stock market value of Buffett's company, saying: "His approach is you buy stocks and you never sell them—you hope to never sell them—and Berkshire Hathaway is down 40% in the last thirteen months; I don't see the Wall Street Journal saying 'Warren Buffett made mincemeat out of his clients.'"^[58] The Wall Street Journal also published a letter written by Schiff in response to his critics saying: "My central investing premise, a weakening dollar and safety in gold, commodities and foreign stocks, didn't materialize in 2008. But all the ingredients were (and remain) present for those movements to occur. Over the past year, market reactions that I didn't foresee—massive global deleveraging, a knee-jerk 'flight to quality' into U.S. Treasuries and a sharp counter trend rally in the U.S. dollar—have kept the scenario from playing out."^[59]

In a November 2009 videoblog, Schiff said that five stocks he picked for Fortune Magazine in January 2009 had gained a total of 360%.^[60][61]

In a March 2009 speech Schiff said that it would be impossible for the U.S. debt to China to be repaid unless the U.S. dollar's value is substantially diluted through inflation. In September 2009 Schiff said that "I would not be surprised to see [gold] at $5,000 over the next several years" and that the 2009 stock market rally was a "bear market rally".^[62]

According to economist Paul Krugman, Schiff's Austrian approach to economics led him to incorrectly predict hyperinflation in the United States.^[63]

Political career[link]

Schiff was an economic adviser to Ron Paul's 2008 presidential campaign. In support of Paul's economic revitalization plan, he said: "We need a plan that stimulates savings and production, not more of the reckless borrowing and consumption that got us into this mess in the first place. Ron Paul's plan is the only one that amounts to a step in the right direction. If you want meaningful change—for the better that is—Ron Paul is the only candidate capable of delivering it."^[64]

In 2008, Schiff also endorsed Murray Sabrin for the U.S. Senate seat in New Jersey.^[65]

In an interview in February 2009, Schiff's position was summarized as a nonpartisan critique of American policymakers, comparing former presidents George W. Bush to Herbert Hoover and President Barack Obama to former president Franklin D. Roosevelt, with neither of the more recent incumbents comparing favorably to the earlier ones.^[66]

Schiff supports the reduction of government economic regulation, and is concerned that President Obama's administration may increase such regulation.^[67] Schiff says that the economic crisis of the late-2000s provides an opportunity to transition from borrowing and spending, to saving and producing. He is critical of the U.S. government's efforts to "ease the pain" with economic stimulus packages and bailouts. According to Schiff, the U.S. government's approach of replacing "legitimate savings with a printing press" could result in hyperinflation.^[68]

2010 U.S. Senate campaign[link]

In December 2008, Connecticut citizens created a website encouraging Schiff to campaign against the incumbent Senator Christopher Dodd.^[69][70] Approximately 5,000 people made campaign contributions using the web site.^[69] On February 21, 2009, a moneybomb raised over $20,000 for Schiff's campaign.^[71] In a May 2009 video blog, Schiff said that he was seriously considering a run for the senate and when questioned by a Washington Post reporter, he said the chance of him entering politics was "better than 50-50".^[72] In June 2009 Schiff commissioned a poll of likely voters which indicated that he trailed Dodd in popularity by four percentage points.^[73] On July 9, 2009, Schiff launched an exploratory committee and an official campaign website.^[69] He began accepting donations in an attempt to see if "people who really believe in freedom, liberty, sound money and the constitution are prepared to support that with an actual political contribution or to volunteer their services and work on this campaign." He received over 10,000 donations and many e-mails from around the world.^[69]

After giving some hints on The Daily Show^[74] Schiff officially announced his candidacy for the Republican nomination on September 17, 2009, during the MSNBC Morning Joe show.^[18][75][76] By October 2009 Schiff had received more than 10,000 telephone calls and letters^[69] and raised over $1,960,000 (USD) in campaign contributions.

At the May 2010 Republican convention, Linda McMahon received the most delegate votes but not enough to prevent an August primary election. U.S. Rep. Rob Simmons received more than the required 15 percent of the total votes necessary to force the primary. Schiff then collected the signatures necessary to earn a position on the August 2010 GOP primary ballot, submitting at least 400 signatures over the state requirement.

In July 2010, Schiff's campaign received endorsements from Steve Forbes and Ron Paul.^[77][78]

In the Republican primary, held on August 10, 2010, Schiff lost the nomination to Linda McMahon.^[79] McMahon collected 49% of the vote, with Simmons on 28% and Schiff 23%.^[80]

Ultimately, the election was won by the Democratic Party primary winner, Richard Blumenthal.^[81]

Broadcasting[link]

From 2005 to 2010 Schiff hosted a weekly podcast named Wall Street Unspun. In October 2010 Schiff began hosting a new radio show named The Peter Schiff Show. The show is broadcast weekdays from 10am-noon ET on internet and terrestrial radio. The show has featured guests such as Ron Paul, Rand Paul, Niall Ferguson, Dennis Kucinich, Rick Santelli, and others.^[82]

Books[link]

Peter Schiff is the author of six books published by John Wiley & Sons. His book, Crash Proof 2.0, appeared on both the New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestseller lists.

• Crash Proof: How to Profit From the Coming Economic Collapse, February 2007, ISBN 978-0-470-04360-8 1
• The Little Book of Bull Moves in Bear Markets: How to Keep your Portfolio Up When the Market is Down, 2008, ISBN 978-0-470-38378-0 2
• Crash Proof 2.0: How to Profit From the Economic Collapse, 2nd Edition, September 2009, ISBN 978-0-470-47453-2 3
• The Little Book of Bull Moves, Updated and Expanded: How to Keep Your Portfolio Up When the Market Is Up, Down, Or Sideways, 2010, ISBN 0-470-64399-4 4
• How an Economy Grows and Why it Crashes, 2010, ISBN 978-0-470-52670-5 5
• The Real Crash: America's Coming Bankruptcy---How to Save Yourself and Your Country, 2012, ISBN 978-1-250-00447-5

References[link]