Larry Diamond wins the Nobel Prize, continues being blocked by the SenateFor months now, Sen. Richard Shelby has been blocking the nomination of economist Peter Diamond to join the board of the Federal Reserve. "I don't believe he is ready to be a member of the Federal Reserve Board," Shelby said, "I don't believe that the current environment of uncertainty would benefit from monetary policy decisions made by board members who are learning on the job.”
Today, Diamond won the Nobel Prize in economics. Of course, Shelby never said he was not a "skilled economist." He said he didn't know monetary economics. But that's also self-evidently foolish: Before serving on the Federal Reserve Board, Elizabeth Duke worked at a bank. Kevin Warsh worked for George W. Bush. Sarah Bloom Raskin was a financial regulator in Maryland. Ben Bernanke was an economist, and before that, one of Diamond's students.
