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Musings from Half Moon Bay: ISS keynoter gives pause, cracks wise |
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Jan 08, 2007 at 05:20 PM |
When you win a Nobel Prize, people usually give you some respect.
Winning a Nobel also means that you can land a few lucrative speaking gigs, if that's your druthers. But that doesn't mean the Biggest Prize of Them All automatically makes you, the laureate, an excellent speaker. Such was the case with the ISS's keynote speaker, Ed Prescott, 2004 Nobel Laureate in Economics.
More absent-minded professor than riveting orator, he often paused for many seconds to gather his thoughts, started a phrase without finishing it, digressed then caught himself then digressed again, or talked to the audience as if they were fellow economists (a few were, vast majority weren't). Prescott's macroeconomic outlook presentation was enigmatic, sometimes entertaining, and occasionally thought-provoking.
That's not to say, though, that Prescott didn't have an almost impish, wisecracking streak. When asked during the question-and-answer session, what is the optimum tax rate? He replied, "zero." He then added something about retirement, quipping a la Yogi Berra, "retirement is a predictable thing---every year, you get a year older." A little later he zinged Dubya from his free-market flank, saying,"I think Bush was a little bit wimpy. He should have cut taxes more. Would've been better for us, and better for our grandchildren too."
He also said that there will be no recession this year, that the dollar won't crash (since an "appreciation is every bit as likely as depreciation"), that the stock market won't crash either, that the recent German decision to raise the value-added tax was "dumb," and that the IT/digital revolution is changing how we live "in ways as fundamental as the agricutural and industrial revolutions."
Now, Dr. Prescott, tell us what you really think.
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