Can An Economics Professor No One Has Ever Heard Of Become President Of The United States? Hot

 

Kotlikoff called me two years ago asking me to look at his financial planning software. I agreed to get back to him after doing some preliminary research. Checking him out, it was obvious immediately that Kotlikoff was a serious guy. I called him back a couple of times but we never connected.  

 

Last week, I stumbled into a story on the Web saying Larry Kotlikoff is running for President of the United States. Initially, I figured it was a joke. It’s not. It’s dead serious.

 

Laurence J. Kotlikoff is a William Fairfield Warren Professor at Boston University, a Professor of Economics at BU, a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a Fellow of the Econometric Society, a Research Associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research. He’s also a columnist for Bloomberg, Forbes, and a blogger for The Economist. Professor Kotlikoff received his B.A. in Economics from the University of Pennsylvania in 1973 and his Ph.D. in Economics from Harvard University in 1977.

“I’ve been thinking for a long time about the problems of the country and writing about it and developing a solution in consultation with other economists and policymakers,” says Kotlikoff.

 

Five Nobel Laureates have endorsed The Purple Health Plan and five Noel winners have endorsed The Purple Financial Plan. Prominent policymakers like Bill Bradley and George P. Schultz have endorsed banking reform proposals in the financial plan and Columbia University Professor Jeffrey Sachs, director of The Earth Institute, assisted with other parts of the plan.

 

Kotlikoff says the U.S. suffers from what economists call “massive coordination failure,” when where desirable activity fails to take place because of limitations within an economic system, a failure to coordinate plans, according to EconomicsHelp.com. “These are problems that can be fixed,” says Kotlikoff.

 

“Politicians don’t quite understand how to fix it without spending a lot of money, which I don’t think is going to help,” says Kotlikoff. “We have been engaging in wars that have not been working and basically, our country is not being run by adults." Kotlikoff’s Vice-Presidential nominee is a former vice-chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Retired Admiral William Owens.

 

But can an economics professor no one has ever heard of before really become the President of the United States?

 

“Past presidents have been retailers, haberdashers, actors, and mostly lawyers,” says Kotlikoff. “I have not seen a lot of competency or interest in fixing our problems, as opposed to getting re-elected.”

 

“I am the first economist to run for President,” says Kotlikoff. “We’ve had a lot of lawyers as President and they’ve made a mess. They don’t understand international trade, exchange rates, fiscal policy, and the dynamics of growth. They don’t understand macroeconomics. It helps to understand the subject.”

 

Kotlikoff is running on the Americans Elect ticket. The goal of Americans Elect is “to nominate a presidential ticket that answers directly to voters—not the political system.” Americans Elect says it is the first “nonpartisan presidential nomination.”

 

Kotlikoff needs 5,000 supporters in each of 10 different states to qualify for the Americans Elect nomination. If he wins the nomination, Kotlikoff will be on the 2012 ballot in every state. Registering for Americans Elect and voting for Kotlikoff takes about five minutes.

 

The other day, when I wrote about how the Internet is rebuilding American institutions, this is what I was really talking about. This pattern of empowering thought leaders like Kotlikoff is reinventing financial advisor trade associations, the American government, and the world.

 

“Using the internet,” says the Americans Elect website you have the power to help break gridlock and change politics as usual. No special interest. No agendas. Country before party.”

 

Please join us Friday, April 27 at 4 ET, when Professor Laurence Kotlikoff will be our guest speaker at a webinar, and he will speak about his bid for the presidency.