The Biggest Janet Yellen Red Flag Is George Akerlof
(AP Photo/Andrew Harnik, File)

In the world of economics, George Akerlof achieved fame before his wife, Janet Yellen, but today all the attention is on her. So, who is George Akerlof?

According to Wikipedia, Akerlof was born in New Haven, Connecticut, the son of Rosalie Clara Grubber (née Hirschfelder) and Gösta Carl Åkerlöf, who was a chemist and inventor. His mother was Jewish, from a family that had emigrated from Germany. His father was a Swedish immigrant. Akerlof graduated from the Lawrenceville School in 1958 and received the Aldo Leopold Award in 2002. In 1962 he received his BA degree from Yale University, in 1966 his PhD degree from MIT and taught at the London School of Economics 1978–80. Akerlof is perhaps best known for his article, “The Market for Lemons, published in 1970. He won the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences in 2001.

In Phishing for Phools, a 2015 book that George Akerlof co-authored with Robert Shiller, the authors wrote without even a hint of irony that people “do not do what is really good for them, they do not choose what they really want.” Please think about the previous bit of absurdity from the two economists. Maybe think a while.

If they’re to be believed, we’re all just a collection of idiots. That’s what their allegedly careful economic analysis concludes.