Wesley Clark, underwhelming
I went to see Gen. Wesley Clark speaking at the New America Foundation today. Given that there are, you know, so many important things happening in the arena of global security these days, I thought it would be really interesting and instructive to hear what he had to say. The guy did used to be the Supreme Allied Commander, NATO, after all. And he's said some very helpful things about the need to engage diplomatically with Iran, made some good criticisms of the invasion of Iraq, etc etc.
Also, he made a brief run to be the Democratic presidential candidate in 2004 (for what that's worth), and was mentioned by some as a possible running mate for Barack Obama this time round.
Quite a disappointment.
This is how his talk was billed: AMERICA NEEDS URGENT ACTION: NO NONSENSE THOUGHTS ON AMERICA'S ECONOMIC CRISIS AND NATIONAL SECURITY DILEMMAS. (Sorry about the caps. They were there in the invitation.)
He made a short-ish opening statement, which seemed like a Milton Friedman-style version of basic Econ 101. Strongly market fundamentalist, with a big dose of US-first boosterism. His main policy recommendation was to freeze homeowners' mortgage rates in place for five years. But he said nothing concrete about how, precisely, the government should use the powers its has acquired over Bear, AIG, and the GSE's to restructure them for the good of the citizenry. Or how the obligations the government has acquired with respect to those acquisitions will be financed; or anything else.
Steve Clemons, who was moderating, had a good opening question about the international effects of the US now being seen as "exporting poisoned financial instruments." But Clark failed to say anything substantial about the serious issues of international credibility and legitimacy that underlay the question.
I was puzzled. Why was this guy, whose whole professional training had been in military affairs, acting as though he had something of value to say on the current big issues of financial management and economic governance (or, mis-governance)? Why didn't he say a lot more about the massive national-security challenges of the day?
The only explanation I could come up with was that Clark-- like so many people in all branches of the US commentatoriat-- is currently very concerned indeed about the state of his own, non-trivial investments. (And apparently somewhat less so about the horrendous crisis that NATO now faces in Afghanistan?)
Clark retired from the military as a four-star general in 2000, with a pension of around $85,000. Plenty to get along nicely on, you'd think? Well, I guess he disagreed. He almost immediately went home to Little Rock, Arkansas, and started working for an investment bank called the Stephens Group. A handy chart here shows you how his earnings rocketed up at that point. This article from Fortune tells you about a $1.2 million sweetheart deal he got from Goldman Sachs and a German manufacturer of industrial gases in early 2004. You get the general picture.
Clark's is an extremely common, "all-American" story of a person who used the the skills and contacts he acquired while in government service to make a ton of money in the private sector as soon as he left the government. That does not, however, make him any kind of an expert on economics. And it is really a pity that it seems to have distracted him from paying the kind of attention to strategic affairs that the country so sorely needs.
(I asked him about Afghanistan. He answered with a handful of meaningless slogans.)
It is possible he might have made a good Vice-presidential candidate? On balance, I think not.
A long time ago, when US-Japan trade was the hot topic, everyone wanted to say something about int'l trade and such. Paul Krugman, at that time, much better economist than he is now, famously lambasted them for wanting to talk about advanced economics without knowing the basics and essentially making up nonsense along the way. Fast forward about 12 years....Krugman, whose expertise is supposedly in economics, is often dispensing nonsense of his own that don't pertain to economics from his NYT column. Why am I not surprised?
I think people often wind up using their expertise to gain audience so that they can just get on soapbox on things that they are clueless on, for no other reason than they like to hear themselves talk. And people will listen to them because they have credentials in something...just not what they are talking about. Being guilty of this every now and then myself, should I complain too much? Probably not, although I don't get to do it on NYT or at the New America Foundation, I guess... In short, I don't like punditry.