Lawrence Kudlow

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Lawrence (Larry) Kudlow (born August 19, 1947 (age 59)), is an American conservative, supply-side economic commentator. He opposes estate taxes, as well as taxes on dividends and capital gains. Kudlow advocates that employees be compelled to make greater contributions to their pension and medical costs, suggesting that these expenses are an undue burden on corporations. Kudlow defends high executive compensation and opposes most forms of government regulation. He believes that reducing taxes will increase revenue. In general, he supports a smaller government that does less and citizens who take more individual responsibility. He advocates wide ownership of stocks and frequently speaks of a broad "investor class" that includes most Americans. Kudlow has been a harsh critic of corporate corruption at Enron, Worldcom, and other companies.[1][2][3][4][5]

Kudlow currently hosts the TV program Kudlow & Company on CNBC. Kudlow is also the economics editor for National Review (a political magazine) and its online complement, National Review Online. He is also the CEO of his own consulting firm, Kudlow and Company. A syndicated columnist, his articles appear in numerous U.S. newspapers and web sites. He also runs his own blog, Kudlow's Money Politic$.

1 Early life
2 1960s
3 1970s
4 1980s
5 1990s
6 2000s
7 See also
8 Bibliography
9 Notes
10 External links
- 10.1 Biographies
- 10.2 Videos

[edit] Early life

Kudlow grew up in a Jewish family in New Jersey, although he converted to Catholicism as an adult. Beginning in his early adulthood, Kudlow has admitted to having problems with drug addiction, including alcohol and cocaine abuse.^[1]

Kudlow attended the Dwight-Englewood School in Englewood, New Jersey, from the second half of middle school to high school. At that school his class had a time at the beginning of the school day reserved for Roman Catholic prayers.

[edit] 1960s

Kudlow was educated at the University of Rochester in Rochester, New York, (graduated 1969 with a degree in history)^[2] and Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs in Princeton in central New Jersey, where he studied politics and economics but left before earning his degree.

[edit] 1970s

Kudlow began his career as a Staff Economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, one of the twelve Federal Reserve Banks in the U.S. He worked in a division of that bank that handled open market operations, which involve buying and selling bonds to help control inflation.

[edit] 1980s

Kudlow was an unsuccessful Democratic Party candidate for Congress in a New Jersey race in 1982. Later, during the first term of the Reagan administration (1981-1985), Kudlow served as Associate Director for Economics and Planning in the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), which belongs to the Executive Office of the President. While he worked at the OMB, Kudlow was also the Washington, DC, reporter of CNN's news program Business Morning, and an Advisory Committee member of the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation, usually known as Freddie Mac.^{[citation needed]}

In 1986, Kudlow married his third wife, Judith Pond, who was born in Montana. Judith moved with Larry to the New York City area, where she studied realist painting at the Art Students League of New York and started working as a painter.

[edit] 1990s

Later, he became chief economist and senior managing director of Bear, Stearns & Company (until his resignation in March 1995). He also served as an economic counsel to A.B. Laffer & Associates, which is the San Diego, California, company of Arthur Laffer, a major supply-side economist who is said to have drawn the Laffer curve, explaining the principle that low taxation can actually lead to increased government revenues, on cocktail napkins during the Gerald R. Ford presidency in the late 1970s.

He was a member of the board of directors of Empower America, a supply-side economics organization founded in 1993 and merged in 2004 with the Citizens for a Sound Economy to form FreedomWorks. Kudlow is also consulting chief economist for American Skandia Life Assurance, Inc., in Connecticut, a subsidiary of insurance giant Prudential Financial.

He has also contributed to the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Times, the Cato Journal of the Cato Institute and the City Journal of the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research, as well as the television shows The McLaughlin Group, and has appeared as a guest on The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer and on Wall Street Week. Kudlow's book American Abundance: The New Economic and Moral Prosperity (ISBN 0-8281-1117-0) was published by HarperCollins on December 1, 1997.

Kudlow belongs to the Union League Club of New York, the Princeton Club, the Capitol Hill Club and the National Women’s Republican Club, and co-founded the Club for Growth. He also serves as a member of the Fordham University board of trustees.

Kudlow has been a Roman Catholic since his conversion in the mid-1990s. It was during this time that he entered the twelve-step program to deal with his drug and alcohol problems.

[edit] 2000s

Kudlow became Economics Editor at National Review Online (NRO) in May 2001.

In August 2001, Kudlow was paid about $50,000 USD to give a public speech to Enron employees and to serve on an advisory board,^[3] which later drew criticism from various writers such as senior Salon.com writer Eric Boehlert,^[4] who claimed that Kudlow wrote positive articles repeatedly about Enron without disclosing his relationship with the company.

On June 26, 2002, in a commentary by Kudlow in NRO titled "Taking Back the Market — By Force", Kudlow called for the US to attack Iraq because "a lack of decisive follow-through in the global war on terrorism is the single biggest problem facing the stock market and the nation today." Kudlow was one of 250 economic experts to sign an open letter dated February 12, 2003 endorsing George W. Bush's policies on economic growth and jobs.^[5] In April 2005, New York governor George Pataki included Kudlow in a six-members state tax commission.

He co-hosted Kudlow & Cramer on CNBC with James Cramer until 2005-01-28, and then solo for two weeks until 2005-02-11. The program's name was changed to Kudlow & Company on Monday, 2005-02-14. Kudlow is a regular guest on Squawk Box. He has contributed to CNBC.com on MSN. He also serves on WABC-AM's The John Batchelor Show as a co-host on Tuesdays and as a substitute. In March 2006, Kudlow started to host a radio talk show on politics and economics on WABC (AM). He started a blog named "Kudlow's Money Politic$" (http://www.moneypolitics.net) in October 2004.

Kudlow lives with Judy in Redding in Fairfield County in southwestern Connecticut. His hobbies include tennis and golf. Kudlow had a hip replacement surgery in mid July 2005, and while he was recovering he continued writing on his blog.

Kudlow is currently CEO of his own consulting firm, Kudlow & Company. Kudlow is a "Distinguished Scholar" at the Mercatus Center of George Mason University.^[6] He is also a member of the Catholic Advisory Board of the Ave Maria Mutual Funds.^[7] Kudlow and Arthur Laffer are the Policy Co-Chairmen of the Free Enterprise Fund.[6]

[edit] See also

[edit] Bibliography

American Abundance: The New Economic & Moral Prosperity, 1997-12-01, HarperCollins, ISBN 0-8281-1117-0
Bullish On Bush: How George Bush's Ownership Society Will Make America Stronger, 2004-10, Rowman & Littlefield, ISBN 1-56833-261-0, authored by Stephen Moore and with comments by Kudlow
Tide: Why Tax Cuts Are the Key to Prosperity and Freedom, 2005-09-30, HarperCollins, ISBN 0-06-072345-9 (audio CD)