During a panel discussion at this week’s Clinton Global Initiative meeting, Goldman Sachs’s Lloyd Blankfein “came out swinging in defense of global capitalism.” Upon reading the CNBC article, I recalled a note I had taken—feeling a blogpost coming on—after listening to Blankfein last week on Bloomberg radio. When asked his opinion of the efficacy of present Fed policy, he replied:
If I were in charge of running the economy I would’ve done everything I could do.
Such statements always bring to mind that timeless Friedrich Hayek quote:
The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they know about what they imagine they can design.
Make no mistake folks, the fact that the likes of Blankfein believe the economy is a thing to be “run” is the problem.
While I agree with his comments (this week), with regard to business and poverty, to dub the CEO of Goldman Sachs (the incubator and, ironically, the rest home of government officials) a defender of global capitalism, well, uh, NO! Perpetrator of global cronyism, absolutely!