I still want to know who gave the order not to promulgate M3 data. Was it
Greenspan or the White House?
-- Lubow.
MM> SATURDAY, MARCH 29, 2008
MM> Dr. Greenspan's Amazing Invisible Thesis
MM> By JIM MCTAGUE
MM> IN ALL LIKELIHOOD, ALAN GREENSPAN has more honorary Ph.D.s than any
MM> living economist, which is no mean feat -- regardless of the
chortling
MM> chorus of critics who suggest he played midwife to the first great
MM> economic crisis of the 21st century and thus is overly lionized as a
MM> financial genius. He has honorary degrees enough to fill a fair-sized
MM> wall, including parchment from Yale, Harvard, Notre Dame, Colgate,
Wake
MM> Forest, Pennsylvania, Edinburgh (Scotland). The Doctor-Doctor also
MM> received an honorary knighthood in 2002 at Balmoral from Queen
MM> Elizabeth II. Sorry to say, this accolade did not come with a suit of
MM> armor.
MM> Greenspan, who left the Fed in 2006 but is still consulted as a
genius,
MM> might find a metallic exoskeleton exceptionally comforting come May,
MM> when the University of Texas Press publishes an unflattering book by
MM> Robert Auerbach entitled Deception and Abuse at the Fed: Henry B.
Gonzalez
MM> Battles Alan Greenspan's Bank.
MM> Auerbach, a veteran Fed basher, ****trays Greenspan as a real-life
MM> Professor Marvel -- who, through double-talk or "garblement,"
MM> transformed himself into a mighty economic wizard à la Oz. Auerbach
MM> strongly implies that Greenspan's 1977 Ph.D. from New York University
MM> was obtained in a few months with little more rigor than a
MM> matchbook-cover art degree and that Greenspan has kept his Ph.D.
thesis
MM> secret in order to protect his vaunted academic reputation.
MM> Although Auerbach's evidence is circumstantial, it certainly is
MM> provocative. For years, NYU told the public that, at Greenspan's
MM> request, the thesis was locked away from public view in a vault at
its
MM> Bobst Library. Auerbach himself was told this in January 2004 when he
MM> tried to obtain a copy.
MM> "Normally," writes Auerbach, "a Ph.D. dissertation in a field such as
MM> economics must be in a form sophisticated enough to be usable in
MM> research, must make a contribution to the existing body of knowledge,
MM> and must be original, unpublished work. When approved, the Ph.D.
MM> candidate is normally required to supply a bound copy of the
MM> dissertation, which remains in the university's library and is
MM> available for future researchers to consult."
MM> Auerbach, who has a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Chicago
MM> (Nobel laureate Milton Friedman was his thesis adviser), kept
MM> requesting access to the papers until NYU's provost, David
McLaughlin,
MM> finally admitted in August 2005 that, "I can tell you that it was the
MM> practice of the business school, during the 1970s, not to deposit
MM> dissertations with the library. Thus, a copy of Greenspan's
MM> dissertation is not in the Bobst Library. We suggest that you contact
MM> Greenspan directly in order to obtain a copy of his dissertation."
MM> Writes Auerbach: "Evidently, he wanted me to believe that NYU
business
MM> Ph.D.s just took their dissertations home and put them in a drawer."
MM> Auerbach says in a footnote that he made no request to Greenspan for
a
MM> copy because "the publication of a scholarly addition to existing
MM> knowledge is the obligation of the university and the Ph.D.
candidate."
MM> Barron's is not bound by such academic niceties and requested a copy
MM> from Greenspan, as well as a response to Auerbach's assertions. The
MM> Maestro's spokeswoman told us that his busy travel schedule precluded
MM> him from getting back to us in time for our deadline. As for two
MM> inquires to the provost, they went unanswered.
MM> Greenspan, writes Auerbach, obtained his NYU doctorate in a few
months,
MM> 27 years after earning a master's there. He had just completed a
stint
MM> as chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers for both presidents
MM> Nixon and Ford, when inflation went wild. His performance hardly
MM> suggested that he'd one day become a legendary Fed chairman.
MM> Exactly how Greenspan wrapped up his NYU studies in such a short
period
MM> is unclear, but it appears that his thesis wasn't especially
MM> time-consuming. Auerbach cites an earlier biography that says that
MM> Greenspan submitted -- instead of a normal Ph.D. dissertation --
some
MM> papers totaling 176 pages that he entitled Papers on Economic Theory
MM> and Policy. Among them was at least one he'd written earlier.
MM> Greenspan and Auerbach, as you have gathered, hardly are boon
MM> companions. Auerbach was an aide to Henry Gonzalez when the quixotic
MM> Texas Democratic populist, who chaired the powerful House Banking
MM> Committee, decided to make the Federal Reserve more accountable to
the
MM> taxpayers. (Full disclosure: Auerbach has been a source for this
writer for
MM> years, and writes kindly of me in the book.)
MM> The Fed, which considers itself as sacrosanct as the Supreme Court,
MM> treated Gonzalez at best as a mere nuisance and at worst as a
garrulous
MM> fool.
MM> In the end, the institution paid a steep price for its arrogance:
Gonzalez,
MM> who is dismissed in a few lines in Greenspan's recent memoirs,
MM> discovered heaps of dirty laundry, including the then-Fed chief's
MM> infamous 1993 attempt to mislead the Banking Committee about the
MM> existence of detailed transcripts of 17 years' worth of Federal Open
MM> Market Committee meetings.
MM> Auerbach contends in his book that Greenspan's invisible Ph.D. thesis
MM> is symbolic of a career marked by prevarication, cover-ups and a
MM> general aversion to making the Fed more publicly accountable. He
calls
MM> on Congress to "bring the Fed into the Democracy" because "unelected
MM> Fed decision makers should not decide what the public should know
about
MM> how they are running the central bank."
MM> Unlike Greenspan, Auerbach writes: "No one should be given the
immense
MM> powers bestowed on the Board of Governors and the FOMC without having
MM> his or her credentials publicly examined."
MM> If only Greenspan's thesis were available to examine.
|
