Peter Diamond Wins Nobel,
Still Unqualified For Fed

Peter Diamond, a 70-year-old economist at MIT, just won the Nobel Prize in Economics. Yes, that's the same Peter Diamond whom President Obama appointed to the Federal Reserve in April and whose confirmation Republicans have blocked.

It's not clear which Republican senators are stopping his nomination at this point, as he's the victim of one of those infamous anonymous holds. But two leading suspects are Jim Bunning and Richard Shelby, both of whom voted against Diamond's nomination in committee and the latter of whom has raised questions about Diamond's qualification.

Shelby has acknowledged that Diamond is a "skilled economist" but has said he wonders whether Diamond has sufficient expertise in monetary policy--even though three sitting Fed governors, including two appointed by Republicans, aren't even economists.

Who is Diamond? He's among the country's most respected economists....

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(Click here to read Peter Diamond's plan to save Social Security, which he wrote for The New Republic in 1998.)

buying risky "securities" with the trust fund still makes no sense to me, especially when there's a simpler, far safer way to save both social security and medicare: eliminate the payroll taxes and pay for it out of general revenue! congress should make itself responsible for keeping the funds solvent every year. benefits shouldn't be tied to income but to cost of living for soc sec and actual cost for medicare. to pay for it, all you have to do is revise the tax code, and i've got a simple way to do that, too: replace the current income tax with a progressive flat tax and cut the loopholes. and when i say "progressive" i mean it! the standard deduction would be about $100,000 at present.

but, as for the gops blocking nobel laureate diamond's confirmation, all i can say is "doggone it, darn right, you betcha!"