Counter Economics

The Hoover Institute has little to do with serious scholarship, and more to do with neo-con and ultraconservative ideology. Their research is clearly doctrinal and people with independent minds interested in real economics would be good to ignore the Institute’s ‘findings.” Real economists do perform research for them, but when they do, it is to pay the bills and is invalid work they would be embarrassed to have published in peer reviewed periodicals. The institute is aptly named after one of the worst presidents in US history. In terms of ideology a modern renaming could be “The Bush Institute.”

Rummy at Hoover

We wrote an article previously about how Donald Rumsfeld had joined the Hoover Institute and and questioned how any serious institution could take on Rumsfeld as a “Research Fellow” after his track record of being completely incorrect on almost every major point that can be publicly traced to him. We also pointed out how Milton Friedman, the most misguided and flawed (as well as one of the most influential) economists of the 20th century, also worked for decades as Research Fellow at the Hoover Institute.

Donald Rumsfeld, part of the neo-con cabal, habitually wrong about everything he touches and the ultimate political animal. This is the Hoover Institute’s kind of man, one who puts the interests of money and power above all principles and accurate thinking. Rumsfeld was approved by Stanford to return as a senior fellow even after his role in approving torture was well known. The ACLU case against him was filed in 2005.

http://www.aclu.org/safefree/torture/rumsfeld.html

Rumsfeld’s “memo” shows without a shadow of a doubt Rumsfeld was a key architect of illegal US torture policy.

His role is fully explained in Philippe Sands book Torture Team.

http://www.tortureteam.com/

Not happy to have just a few people they have hired (Donald Rumsfeld and Milton Friedman) who supported torture, Stanford-Hoover felt they needed another to complete their rotation, so they hired Bush hand puppet Condoleeza Rice.

http://counterecon.com/2009/05/04/stanford-has-a-taste-for-facsism-and-condi/

So where to Stanford and Hoover stand on torture? Apparently they support it.

Our Visit to Hoover’s Site

We decided to pay the website a visit and really analyze the Hoover Institute, and what we found was interesting. Essentially the articles we found were seriously flawed. Here is one example. One discussed how the income tax share of the wealthiest Americans has increased over time, from 17 percent to 37 percent. What is not brought up but this article is that the income of the wealthiest American has increased far in excess of that, so the argument that the wealthy are more burdened with taxes would be a faulty conclusion. Here is the link to the article.

http://www.hoover.org/research/factsonpolicy/facts/6771827.html

This is very basic analysis that could be performed on the back of a napkin by someone with an elementary knowledge of economics, history and math. However, the Hoover Institute, with many PhD’s on its payroll, got this wrong. As we read more, the plot began to thicken.

Doctrine Presented as Research

We investigated more articles. One of the projects at the Hoover Institute was called the Iran Democracy Project. This project states that it…

“maps out the possible trajectories for transitions to democracy in the Middle East, beginning with Iran.”

This statement is suspicious. Faux think tanks like the Center for a New American Century, which is a Rumsfeld-Cheney-Richard Pearl-Chalabi connected has a similar over interest in Iran. And its not just Iran. This group, along with other neo-cons also has a big interest in how Venezuela is managed and of course was very interested in the political management of Iraq. In fact, the neo-cons are very interested in the politics of countries which have a large amount of oil reserves. Their academic interest does not seem to extend to countries, no matter how poorly managed, that do not have oil reserves. So the question would be…is this really an academic interest at all?

Why the interest in “democracy” in countries with vast oil reserves? Is this just an academic interest on the part of Hoover? Hoover does not get funding from companies that may seek further military expansion into the Middle East in order to steel more oil reserves does it? After all the discussion about not being after Iraq’s oil, the US oil companies now receive 75% of ever dollar of oil removed from Iraq.

Anti Soviet Material

For decades the right wingers (now called neo-cons) petrified Americans with the Soviet Union. When the Soviet Union fell, almost all the “intelligence” presented to the American public about Soviet military strength proved to be false. John LaCarre’s book Russia House (later turned into a movie with Sean Connery and Michelle Pfieffer) discussed this very issue. As with the WMD issue, no appology was issued by the CIA for misinforming the American public after the Soviet’s fall exposed it as a paper tiger, and the CIA reports about them as utterly manufactured.

The habit of using the Soviet Union as a boggie man continues in grand style at the Hoover Institute. We found a Soviet Archives Research Project, which according Hoover…

“Studies the records of the Soviet state and party located in the Hoover Archives. The goal is to understand the workings of the Soviet totalitarianism by studying the world’s best documented dictatorship”

This seems like a strange topic for an economic research institution. However, it makes sense when one considers that conservative think tanks like to label every progressive program as socialist or communist. This project fits with their ideological interest in beating the dead horse of communism. However, if the Hoover institute is interested in totalitarianism there are a few other topics that could be studied but that probably will not be.

• The similarities between the KGB and say, the Patriot Act pushed through by the Bush Administration
• The US support for dictator Pinochet both in terms of economic (through the World Bank, and IMF as well as the University of Chicago economics department) as well as militarily (through training in torture and the sending of “advisers” which always seems to end up with a lot of people dead – see Vietnam.)
• The US support for the dictatorship of El Salvadore both militarily and economically

One might question why the Hoover Institute tends to have an academic interest in the dictatorships of its enemies, but no interest or “archives” of the dictatorships that the US, primarily under conservative administrations, that the US has created and funded.

http://www.hoover.org/research/sovietarchives

Like US foreign policy, Hoover really dislikes communist dictatorships that mistreat their people. Dictatorships that benefit large US economic interests are ok, and of course reducing democracy in the US in order to spread it overseas is ok also. The Hoover Institute’s view on dictatorships is lets say….”variable.” Blink and you might miss the exact principle they are supporting.

Everyone Watch Out, Here Comes the “Hoover Task Force“

Hoover also has things called “Task Forces” (of which Donald Rumsfeld was named to at least one), where they

“recruit extraordinary intellectual talent to…”

and

“….seeks to determine how it can provide meaningful information and advice on public policy.”

This sounds pretty good, until one realizes that they chose Donald Rumsfeld to be part of one of them. Does Donald Rumsfeld have “extraordinary intellectual talent,” or is he more likely simply very political and savvy at political infighting? Donald Rumsfeld has both extensive failures on this resume (the Iraq catastrophy, military privatization debacle, Abu Grade prison and prisoner torture Geneva Convention violations directly authorized by him) as well as massive documented examples of lying. On wonders if lying is a requirement for Hoover as so many of its fellows seem to lie so frequently. However, Rumsfeld a lying grandmaster and in a league of his own. In addition to a resume from hell, he is also guilty of major ethical lapses in holding stock in companies that he directed military contracts to while the head of the Department of Defense. For a man who completed the undergraduate curriculum at Princeton, he says some remarkably stupid things. Here are a few gems of Rumsfeld wisdom.

“Freedom is messy, free people are free to do bad things, but they are also free to do good things like live their lives”

In response to questions regarding the lawlessness and looting that were a direct result of inadequate military planning after the invasion of Iraq.

“We know where they are. They’re in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad and east, west, south and north somewhat.“

In response to a question regarding where WMDs are prior to the invasion of Iraq.

“I worked in private industry in research areas and I learned one thing…you can not allow researchers to eat lunch together, it just does not work.”

However, either the Hoover Institute’s webmaster is overwhelmed, managing the tiny amount of information on this site, or Hoover is attempting to keep a low profile, as Donald Rumsfeld is listed nowhere on the list of contributors to the task forces. He must be part of a “black ops” task force.  How fitting.

http://www.hoover.org/taskforces/members?sortBy=name&c=y

He is also not listed on the fellows page…

http://www.hoover.org/bios?sortBy=name&c=y

If Hoover is so Sophisticated Why do so Many Small Brained Individuals Speak at Hoover Symposiums?

Hoover also has a number of symposiums. How a symposium could include opening comments by Jeb Bush (who shares Dan Quale’s old problem of zoning out during interviews) is a bit confusing. Laura Bush is another person who also provided opening comments, but who would ordinarily not be included in this  type of get together, at least at any other research institution. After going through the minutes, most of the symposiums are simply faux intellectual neo-con and ultraconservative talking points with high sounding titles. Some of them go beyond simply conservative propeganda and move into high camp.

Before he was disgraced for firing DOJ attorneys for not prosecuting Democratic office holders, Alberto Gonzalez stopped in 2005 by and gave a speech where he praised Ronald Reagen for praising former Attorney General Edwin Meese. If you will recall, Edwin Meese’s big contribution to the justice department was his “war on smut.” He thought the Justice Department should be more focused on stopping the distribution of pornography. As you can see we are moving into high comedy here. Alberto then proceeded to ramble on about in a very folksy manner about his new responsibilities at the Justice Department. The transcripts are particularly entertaining. They can be see and laughed be at here.

http://www.hoover.org/research/conferences

Former corrupt head of the Department of Justice, Alberto Gonzalez lent his enormous credibility to another deep and penetrating Hoover symposium proceeding. Here he is sitting next to another not so ethical fellow. Through its association with the elite white collar criminal class, Hoover shows that it has no ethical concerns or standards. Gonzalez was also known as a mentally weak attorney, who was appointed to the head of the DOJ with little qualification, because he was Bush’s personal attorney. Once in office he demonstated he either did not understand constitutional law, or was unconcerned with violating it.

Hoover, Getting it Wrong (again) on Energy Deregulation and Enron

There was also a symposium which attempted to get to the bottom of the California energy crisis back in 2001. The symposium agenda bring up issues like “retail competition” and “industry restructuring.” However, the real problem was a lack of regulation which lead to a phony power crisis due to companies like Reliant and Enron manipulating energy production and distribution (the threats by Grey Davis to sue the Texas energy companies for billions of California losses was the main thing that lead to his recall). However, none of these issues, that were the actual caust, are listed on the conference agenda. Hoover clearly had no interest in holding a symposium on corporate fraud, very possibly because they have friends who worked at Enron or Reliant, and you don’t want to throw stones at your benefactors. Maybe they received a Distinguished Citizenship award from Enron, as Alan Greenspan did, two weeks before Enron declared bankruptcy. Milton Friedman, a now deceased, but at the time an industry shill posing as an economist, shows up invalidating all of the proceedings.

http://www.hoover.org/research/conferences/3043191.html

Hoover thought the problem with the California energy crisis lay in too much regulation. There was a another culprit they did not spend much time talking about that day. Hmmmm…who could it be? This gives you a good idea of how predictive the Hoover Institute is. Their research specializes in looking in all the wrong places.

Hoover as Academic Fraud

In summation, the Hoover Institute is simply a bad joke or an pseudo-academic fraud depending upon how you look at it. In reviewing their material, its entirely doctrinal and is simply a playground for old ideas that have been tried and failed over and over again. Hoover has one thing going for it…a lot of money. When you have a lot of money, you can continue to push bad ideas long after their expiry date. As a general statement, Hoover produces utterly idiotic research. This is because research is not the goal of the Hoover Institute.

Unfortunately, Hoover Institute does contract for individuals with academic credentials, however, you can’t really tell by looking at the research output. Every single subject is clearly supporting some underhanded hyper-conservative policy goal.

• Planning regime change in Iran
• Pushing anti-socialist concepts
• Privatizing schools

Every research conclusion is known before the research is undertaken. If hell were to design a research institute, it would end up not much different from the Hoover Institute. An furthermore, Hoover’s research could just as well have been published at any number of conservative research institutes. According to FAIR.org, which follows think tanks.

“Like Scholotzky’s Delis, the conservative think tanks offer a very limited menu: They publish reports advocating deregulation, privatization, property rights, school choice and a few other topics. And each produces reports that sound the same as others, just as an order at any Scholotzky’s tastes the same.” – http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=1430

Who Sells Their Credentials to Hoover?

One wonders about the integrity of someone who would be a “Fellow” at the Hoover Institute. More than likely, Hoover is simply a payday for academics, who do serious research at their university, and then publish doctrinal drivel for the Hoover Institute for “consulting” fees. Corrupt industry leaders then pitch this “research” in order to gain leverage in affecting policy.

Here are a few logical questions:

• Has any Hoover Institute paper ever been peer reviewed, or do they simply release whatever they like.
• Who funds them? Exxon, Haliburton?

Should an Industry Supported Fake Research Center be Allowed on the Stanford Campus?

Stanford may think its harmless to have a propaganda arm of the super wealthy rather than a research institute. However, we disagree with this assessment. If Stanford allows a fake research center to reside on their campus, what else will Stanford do for cash? For instance, does the medical school have a lower research standard for industry supported biosciences institutes on campus as well? That is, if I pay enough money, can I associate with Stanford and publish false material? How about the actual Stanford department sponsored research, if Merck shows up with enough gold bullion, can results be altered, or negative results “lost?” If so, is there a fee schedule published somewhere? People who propose this would never happen, should consider the precedent Stanford is setting by hosting the Hoover Institute. If its ok for Hoover to fake economic research, why would it not be ok for a Stanford bio-science institute to make up is own pharmaceutical trials?

As a homage to Stanford selling its reputation we created this little advertisement that could be run in different business periodicals. It would cause the endowment to skyrocket like an IPO, allowing Stanford administrators to drive the newest Lambrogini Coutache. However, would this be an advertisement that Stanford would approve of?

We wish that Stanford were merely being duped. However after our initial research into Hoover, we learned that Stanford provides some 25% of Hoover’s $25 million (which is probably $30 million now as the figure is old) operating budget. This means Stanford is completely compliant and endorses what Hoover is doing. This means that some extremely nasty people are high up in the Stanford administration. The type of people who were the slave owners in the old south or slave traders even. Hoover can be interpreted as a false for Stanford, producing fake research that they could not release as it would damage their academic reputation. We will be writing more on the Hoover-Stanford connection.

References

http://www.projectcensored.org/top-stories/articles/13-schwarzenegger-met-with-enrons-key-lay-before-the-california-recall/

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/20/arts/20Rich.html

The Elite Consensus, George Draffan