Redstate

Quite a coincidence that I just today finished reading Andrew Napolitano's new book, The Constitution in Exile, in which Judge Napolitano lucidly explains how FDR's New Deal figured prominently in the shredding of the Constitution and the consolidation of power by the Federal government. I'm not well read on Mr. Galbraith's government service, but if he had much to do with FDR's power grab, I'll not mourn him too long.

and a cautionary example that 'True Belief' trumps wisdom every time.  I will miss him, if only a foil for WFB with whom he warred on a friendly basis.

Tob

They don't make them like him anymore.  He was so wrong-headed on so many things that I suppose it's good, yet it's somehow sad.

was one of the first economists I studied. He believed in a strange and heady mixture of Industrial planning, high marginal Tax rates, High Tariffs(on some goods). And a high level of government regulation of industry.

  It is wonderful to contemplate how far we have come that there are almost no Economists still alive today who would argue those points. Even a left winger like Krugman would not be for that toxic brew!

Respectfully, I do not know if he changed any of his views in recent years, I only remember his wriitngs from the early seventies.

RIP but I have other economists I admire more.  Katrina vanden Heuvel (The Nation) is practically in tears, though, so I will let her weep for him.

The WaPo's obit. is one of the most thorough (and sympathetic to his economic cast of mind) that I've found today.  His Office of Price Administration stint was during WWII, when essentially almost all of the domestic economy that mattered, at least in terms of prices, was under his command.

His mentor in the federal bureaucracy was Leon Henderson, a leading New Dealer. Henderson placed Dr. Galbraith in charge of the price division of the Office of Price Administration, which was arguably the most powerful civilian post in the management of the wartime economy.

After two years, Dr. Galbraith and his staff had placed virtually all goods and services in the country under his control. But he had "reached the point that all price fixers reach -- my enemies outnumbered my friends."

Bill Clinton awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom:

"With clarity, wit and a keen social conscience, he has made complex economic theories and processes comprehensible to a wide audience and highlighted the social and ethical impacts of economic policies," the citation said. "A tireless reformer of the free enterprise system, he has resolutely promoted social justice and challenged conventional assumptions in his Harvard classroom and in the public arena."

For more comparative analysis of the world's reaction to Galbraith's death, try this link at Google News.  I will say on his behalf that he seems to have been a very humane and relatively self-deprecating man for a Harvard luminary who was also 6'8" tall.  I have always considered him to be the economist version of R. Buckminster Fuller, if you understand the comparison.

But I'm glad the Office of Price Administration has not (yet) become an independent branch of the Federal Government.  Give Katrina some time...

I like the headline of the NPR interview, The Man speaks, the liliputians tremble.

    The Times did an obit today that finally outdid their obit for Gus Hall.  Don't kid yourself, there are plenty around who agree with his brand of socialism.  Give the old guy credit for this, he never hid his views or disguised them.  This is more then can be said of the remnants of the intellectual left who, submerged and with torpedo tubes loaded, lurk in the shallow waters of compassion, the environment, government leadership, and other such drivel.

   JKG had style,wit, and eloquence.  I can't think of a leftist around today to match him.  Although his voice was quieted with age he will be missed.

   RIP.

Awarding a Presidential Medal of Freedom to a man who made his political bones enacting price controls.

One of the interesting things about reading the New Dealers is seeing how much they ENJOYED all their power during WW II.  The New Deal was kind of an improvised thing that made precedents for growing federal power; it was WWII that clinched the deal.

After the calmer Truman/Eisenhower period, liberal academics found the Kennedys and the fusion of glamor, money and power.  They have been on crack ever since.

Sigh...

That was all I needed to hear from NPR's report on his passing to understand what he was all about.  Price controls.  How positively naive!  Nothing regulates demand better than price.  And what regulates supply if not demand?

My grandfather was working in a foundry as a foreman making war materiel.  Galbraith has a compelling story of walking behind a till and running the economic apparatus of this country with a firm hand on price controls during the war, but without people like my grandfather he would have been absolutely nowhere.  And my grandfather, a Republican to the day he died, disagreed with almost everything Galbraith did after he left the OPA.  Harvard "rescued" Galbraith and put him in the position of Illustrious Potentate, and his legacy lives on in groups like the Northwest Progressive "Institute" (Do you know what an Institute takes to become an Institute or a Center?  One person and some University money, based on my experience at DePaul College of Law.  Yep, that's right, there's a whole "Center" based at the College which was staffed by exactly ONE person, at the beginning.)

And that ONE person was instrumental in getting George Ryan to grant clemency to every death-row prisoner in Illinois.  How's that for Democracy Now?

People really need to understand how influencing policy is done, especially by legal academia.  Galbraith was powerful enough that he got a whole Medal of Freedom from Bill Clinton, but there are thousands of others around the country who are just waiting to take his place.

for today's oil situation.

You would provide it.  Please, please Adam.  Let down your hair!

I have also feared fire in the fuselage, Frederick, but that doesn't mean Oscar wasn't right.  So do the world a favor, please, and talk about this a little more.

Thanks for the response but don't forget Jean Baptiste Say, supply creates it's own demand.  Allowing for regulate, of course I'm in agreement, but with that caveat as a contributing factor.