You Got Hammack’d
Listen, I don't know the first thing about Beth Hammack.
No matter how many times I say this, nobody believes me, but to reiterate: I'm not from this world. The world of high finance, I mean. I got an MBA because the coursework was a joke compared to the coursework I was accustomed to after a dozen years in philosophy and political science. I could've breezed through that MBA program stone drunk. I say that with the utmost confidence because... well, because I was stone drunk for every second o
Because we don’t need Federal Reserve bank heads to know anything about banking, monetary systems, economics, markets, trading, investors, etc? Lost me here.
I don’t think the Federal Reserve needs to know a lot about Main Street or even Poor Street’s lived experience. The Fed’s job is to hold inflation and employment to a target range/level, to regulate the banking system, to protect the stability of the broader financial and monetary system, and to be the global liquidity provider of last resort in times of crisis. I don’t see why one would choose experience driving a union truck or living on minimum wage over experience with the things the Fed is actually responsible for.
Of course I lost you, John. You’re not Main Street.
(The more of these types of comments I get, the more of these types of articles I want to write. I’m about done writing for the 1%. Or even the 2% or the 3% or the 4% or the 5%. I don’t like ’em to be totally honest.)
I hope everyone who finds their way to this comment section reads the comment above, from John, and particularly this bit: “I don’t think the Federal Reserve needs to know a lot about Main Street or even Poor Street’s lived experience.”
It’s almost comedy. Understated, dry comedy. That’s something you’d see as a caption on a New Yorker cartoon showing two bankers talking over drinks.
Also, just to drive home the point, how effective are these folks at their job anyway?
Mary Daly presided over one of the worst bank runs in modern American history last year. I don’t know what the Walmart clerk equivalent of that would be (accidentally burning the store down, maybe?) but I can assure you the clerk would’ve been fired.
How effective would a random union member or low-income community resident be or have been?
We’ll never know, John. Because they’ll never get a shot. And you’re anyway constructing a straw man. I didn’t mean we should literally go hire a “random” homeless person and install them at the helm of the Cleveland Fed. If you want to pretend you don’t understand what I’m saying here, that’s your prerogative. I couldn’t care less. It’s just another article.
One reason is that central banks only exist at the pleasure of governments and, by extension, voters. They are a political construct whose existence can be altered or eliminated at will.
One alternative which could replace our current system is the old gold standard. The Fed was created partly in reaction to that happy experience.
Probably should hire one of those philosopher types who cannot get a job with the degree who has lived on the bottom of society.
I will wager can hire a philosopher for less money than Hammack. Or is she getting her pay under the table like Javanka?
Parks & Rec had it all figured out.
H, I have to say, every once in a while, something in you snaps. This seems to be one of those moments in the comments. Just like all of us, certain things trigger us in real life memories. You write because it gives you peace and hope. I read that and hear that in all of your writings. But I also often times read an uncomfortable combination of arrogance, righteousness, and unfulfilled efforts at lived empathy.
Please consider an alternative thought on John’s comments.
I am a retired and still licensed attorney. I now help and represent children in the foster care system. I do not believe that I have the need to have been in the foster care system, or to have experienced the devastation caused by it, to be able to apply the skills that I have learned through my education and years of experience to assist them in the real world of their horror.
Empathy, combined with the elixir of education and lifelong professional experience can go a long way to helping folks when you have not lived their ”life experience“.
Last, trashing all who have received an MBA as somehow lessers is just uncool. Come on now.
“See, my heart been black, ain’t no hope in here.”