The Slim Pickings of August

It's August. The news is slow, for the most part. Even the Wall Street Journal is grasping for filler.

Witness the op-ed page today, featuring the former Salomon Brothers erstwhile "Dr. Doom," Henry Kaufman. Kaufman opines on "How the Fed Lost Its Groove."

Indeed!

Several things struck me about Kaufman's piece. Recall, if you will, that he was Salomon's lead guy on economics. Salomon was, primarily, a fixed income house. Thus, for Kaufman, economics is all about fixed income. And only fixed income.

Thus, the main thrust of Kaufman's editorial is the amount of debt being created due to the Fed's actions. Nowhere in his piece did I notice him mentioning their first responsibility- fighting inflation. Instead, he focuses on Wall Street trading business profit planning, risk taking, and private debt creation.

If memory serves, Kaufman left Salomon before it's rapid decline due to various scandals and poor strategic choices. He had difficulty creating and running a hedge fund. He spent most of the 1990's being wrong about the economy. Given sufficient time, he was finally "right" after making, gloomy forecasts for most of the decade.

Now, apparently, he's in the economic consulting business. Looks like he hasn't changed much at all, and how many of us do at his age?

Finally, more than anything, I sense in Kaufman's WSJ piece more of the "I should have Ben Bernanke's job" attitude. And I don't believe he was on George Bush's short list for the position, either. No, Henry Kaufman is just another has-been Wall Street economist who can't forgive the country, and Wall Street, for not giving him a better, more prominent position than the one he last held over a decade ago.

Why does anyone take him seriously, most of all the WSJ?