Bye-Bye, Bob
Investor's Business Daily
Editorial
January 3, 2005
Leaders: The Dallas Fed has quietly named a replacement for its departing president, Robert D. McTeer. Richard Fisher has some big shoes to fill.
Chances are good you have no idea who McTeer is. Too bad, because he’s a rarity among central bankers: Someone who not only thinks clearly about economics, but who believes in free markets, writes well and says what he means.
We’ve been big fans for years. With wit and insight, he has helped demystify the many musty corners of the dismal science, using humor and common sense to explain very difficult economic ideas to average Americans.
It’s surprising to go back in time and see how many economists were downright depressed about the U.S. economy is the mid-1990s – just before the big boom. Not McTeer.
He was an early and ardent advocate for what has come to be called the “New Economy.” He believed more jobs and faster growth don’t cause inflation, and that the “churn” that comes with a growing economy isn’t evil, but necessary. McTeer’s new paradigm ideas led him to be one of the few policy-makers to oppose the Fed’s foolhardy rate hikes in 1999-2000, a move that today seems almost oracular in its wisdom.
We have no doubt his replacement will do a fine job. But it will be impossible to replace the colorful and brilliant McTeer. And we still think, as many others do, that McTeer will someday be a fine Federal Reserve chairman.