Candidate Kotlikoff

Laurence Kotlikoff is a distinguished economist whom I met at a conference in Boston in late 2009, when I presented him with an award for retirement income research. There's a photo somewhere of him and me standing arm in arm. I later reviewed his book Jimmy Stewart Is Dead for the (soon-to-be-archived) FrumForum.

Larry now has decided to run for president, as a third-party candidate emphasizing "purple" ideas that appeal across red and blue ideological lines. He's never held public office, but he's a knowledgeable, innovative thinker who's advised institutions all over the world and deserves to be given a serious hearing. In fact, he's far more deserving of that than some of the people who have been taken seriously this year (I'm looking at you, Herman). I'll be watching with interest and likely will have more about the Kotlikoff campaign down the road.

UPDATE 1/10: See Kotlikoff's campaign site and a write-up by my colleague Gil Weinreich.

Horrible financial mess

"Reining in the Bankers." I look at Larry Kotlikoff's proposal for radical financial surgery. Excerpt:

Kotlikoff’s new book Jimmy Stewart Is Dead: Ending the World’s Financial Plague with Limited Purpose Banking offers an ambitious proposal to fix — or, more precisely, replace — our ailing financial system. The title refers to It’s a Wonderful Life, in which Stewart played a trustworthy small-town banker. Any resemblance the banking industry may once have had to that movie is long gone, as Kotlikoff points out, and the recent financial sector — with bankers taking on massive risks they neither disclose nor understand, then leaving taxpayers with the bill —is better described as “It’s a Horrible Mess.”

Candidate Kotlikoff redux

Recommended reading: "Only 6 People Can Be Elected President in November. Guess Who They Are," by Laurence Kotlikoff, economist and presidential candidate whom I interacted with a couple of times in my previous job at Research magazine. (Actually, looking through my archive, I'm reminded I also reviewed a book of his for FrumForum.) I like and respect Larry a great deal, but I should add this isn't an endorsement. I haven't made a definite decision as to whom I'll vote for in November. The only certain thing is that it won't be Donald Trump (or Jill Stein). But the liberty to think about voting for anyone other than Hillary is afforded by New Jersey being among the safest of blue states. Even so, I don't really like the idea of leaving it to others to vote Hillary and thereby stop Trump. So I'll think about it more. But I do think Kotlikoff would be a pretty good president.

Kotlikoff nomination

I've written previously, and favorably, about economist Laurence Kotlikoff's campaign for the presidency, which involves trying to get the nomination of the group Americans Elect. Here's Kotlikoff's update on where the campaign stands. As of right now, he has 73 backers for the nomination -- I just became one of them, after following the somewhat cumbersome process at the Americans Elect website. I don't know yet whom I'll vote for in November -- that will depend on who the GOP candidate is, in part -- though I am sure the substance of the race would improve substantially if this innovative, hard-to-pigeonhole thinker were in; so good luck, Larry.

Alternative candidates

My latest column for Research magazine, "The Third Choice," looks at Americans Elect. Excerpt:

Private-equity executive Peter Ackerman founded Americans Elect in 2010, having led a predecessor effort called Unity08. In mid-2011 the group opened a website to start recruiting voters as delegates, and since early 2012 delegates have been voting to draft potential candidates. Among names the have risen high on the list are Ron Paul, Jon Huntsman, Bernie Sanders and Michael Bloomberg.

Besides draftees, some hopefuls actively seek the Americans Elect nomination. One of these is former Louisiana Governor Buddy Roemer, who recently abandoned a bid for the Republican nomination, and who is also running for the nomination of the Reform Party, Ross Perot’s old operation.

Another aspirant is Boston University economist Laurence Kotlikoff, who has been profiled at Research magazine and sister publication AdvisorOne.com several times for his contributions on fiscal policy, financial planning and other areas. (Disclosure: having met Kotlikoff and seeing him as an innovative thinker, I clicked my support for his nomination at the Americans Elect website.)

 Whole thing here.

Aging, awards

Off to Boston shortly for the Retirement Income Industry Association's annual meeting and awards dinner. I'll be introducing award winner Laurence Kotlikoff.

And if you're feeling long in the tooth and ready for retirement, the Nobel Prize has just been awarded to the people who figured out that telomeres are crucial in the aging process.

Limited purpose banking

Review copy received: Jimmy Stewart is Dead: Ending the World's Ongoing Financial Plague with Limited Purpose Banking, by Laurence Kotlikoff, whom I introduced at a conference last fall after Research ran a profile of him. I'll likely have something on the book at some point.

UPDATE: My review.

Huntsman's point

Over at the Fiscal Times, Edward Morrissey expresses some puzzlement as to the point of Jon Huntsman's campaign. Morrissey correctly notes that Huntsman has a pretty conservative record and set of positions, notwithstanding his centrist image. However, Morrissey writes:

Huntsman never connected to the Republican base, for a number of reasons.  Conservatives, especially in the Tea Party, didn’t extend much trust to a man who showered praise on President Obama as a “remarkable leader” with “brilliant analysis of world events,” and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton as having “even more charisma than her husband!”  Nor did the manner of his leaving impress Republicans, having made it known that he wanted to challenge his boss for the White House before officially resigning from his post in the administration.

 If Tea Party conservatives didn’t warm to Huntsman, the feeling was undeniably mutual.  Earlier this week, Huntsman told Politico  that he hoped that the cycles of political thought “ultimately takes us to a sane Republican Party based on real ideas,” after supposedly “losing its equilibrium” in the Obama era....

I'll grant that Huntsman's praise of his onetime boss could've been less fulsome, and also that (as Morrissey elsewhere complains) Huntsman's jokes sometimes fall flat. Plus, Morrissey may be right to second-guess Huntsman's strategy of bypassing Iowa and placing so much political capital on New Hampshire instead.

But what I find manifestly true, and extremely important, is that the Republican Party did lose its equilibrium in the Obama era, and became a vehicle for various ideas and impulses that don't pass a sanity test. These range from birtherism to worries about "Kenyan anti-colonialism" to science denialism on climate change. (Note: there's room for debate as to what policies to adopt in light of climate change, but not for obstinately denying well-established facts that global warming is occurring and anthropogenic.)

A key attraction of Huntsman is that he won't succumb to that Obama-era fever. And if -- unlikely though not impossible -- he wins the nomination, he's far and away the candidate most likely to win the election. Steering the Republican Party away from its worst impulses, while maintaining a broadly conservative stance, and actually winning in the event that he is the nominee: that's the point of the Huntsman campaign.

UPDATE 1/16: Huntsman's out. Which means centrist types who won't vote for Obama can now choose between Romney and Kotlikoff.

Social Security webinar note

Click here for information about a webinar I'm doing Nov. 5 with economist (and onetime presidential hopeful) Laurence Kotlikoff on "How to Work Social Security into Your Clients' Retirement Portfolios." That's in my capacity as senior editor at Research magazine, which is aimed at financial advisors (and which has no responsibility for Quicksilber, my personal blog).

Meanwhile

Posting will continue to be light, for which one can thank partly our overly complicated tax system. Meanwhile, I encourage readers to click through the box at right for more info on Larry Kotlikoff, whose nomination to the Americans Elect line I recently backed. (I have a magazine column upcoming on the subject of that group and its push to offer a third choice in this year's election.)