Davos Newbies

Willem Buiter doesn’t pull any punches. I don’t always agree with him, but he’s worth reading. Here’s the summary of his analysis of the 17 members of president-elect Obama’s transition economic advisory board:

1. They’re old
2. Too few serious economists
3. Far too many lawyers
4. They are protectionist
5. They are the unalluring faces of past failures

I think he’s reading too much into the 17 announced names. Look at Obama’s voluminous public statements and writings, and the nature of the policy team that he has assembled. I think even maverick economists like Buiter will end up more pleased than provoked.

As Kevin Drum points out, the anti anti-Summers backlash is growing. I think Summers was a good Treasury secretary the first time around and don’t really have a dog in the hunt this time. But I do have a continuing interest in what happens to Summers because he’s one of two people in the Davos universe whom I have been mistaken for.

I don’t see it myself, but twice in my Davos experience someone thought I was Summers. Once, and this I found bizarre in the extreme, someone thought I was Binyamin Netanyahu. I think it’s the thin Alpine air.

You judge for yourself: