Lawrence Kudlow

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Lawrence (Larry) Kudlow (born August 20, 1947), is an American conservative, supply-side economics advocate, and television personality. He is the host of CNBC's Kudlow & Company. As a syndicated columnist, his articles appear in numerous U.S. newspapers and web sites, including his own blog, Kudlow's Money Politic$. Kudlow opposes estate taxes, as well as taxes on dividends and capital gains. He also 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 and defends high executive compensation as a manifestation of market forces and opposes most forms of government regulation. In general, he describes himself as a 'supply-side' economist, arguing that reducing taxes will increase governmental revenue through expansion of the overall economy. Lately however, he advocates wide ownership of stocks and frequently speaks of a broad "investor class" that includes most Americans and has now become a harsh critic of corporate corruption such as Enron, Worldcom, and other companies.[1][2][3][4][5]

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[edit] Early life

Kudlow was born into a Jewish family and grew up in New Jersey. 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.[1]

[edit] 1960s

Kudlow was educated at the University of Rochester in Rochester, New York and was graduated in 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. He was a classmate of Robert L. Johnson at Princeton.

[edit] 1970s

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

[edit] 1980s

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, more commonly known as Freddie Mac.[citation needed]

At about this time, as acknowledged by Kudlow, he had problems with drug addiction, including alcohol and cocaine abuse.[3]

In 1986, Kudlow married his third wife, Judith Pond.

[edit] 1990s

Then he was chief economist and senior managing director of Bear, Stearns & Company. He was fired in 1995 after his out-of-control drug use resulted in him missing an important client presentation.[4] 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 and purported creator of the Laffer curve, an economic theory tying low taxation levels to increased government revenues. See Rolle's Theorem.

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 Women's National Republican Club, and co-founded the Club for Growth. He also serves as a member of the Fordham University Board of Trustees.

Kudlow converted to Roman Catholicism 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 US$50,000 to give a public speech to Enron employees and to serve on an advisory board,[5] which later drew criticism from various writers such as senior Salon.com writer Eric Boehlert,[6] who claimed that Kudlow wrote positive articles repeatedly about Enron without disclosing his relationship with the company. He is routinely criticized for his over simplification and inaccurate statements on economic and financial issues. [7]

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.[8] 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 Jim 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$ in October 2004.

Kudlow lives with Judy and their dog Joyful in Redding in Fairfield County in southwestern Connecticut. His hobbies include tennis and golf. Kudlow had a hip replacement surgery in mid July 2005.

Kudlow is a "Distinguished Scholar" at the Mercatus Center of George Mason University.[9] He is also a member of the Catholic Advisory Board of the Ave Maria Mutual Funds.[10]

Kudlow has recently pledged join the Pepperdine University School of Public Policy's Political Economy Institute as a lector and advisor.[11]

[edit] See also

[edit] Bibliography

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ "The Interview: Lawrence Kudlow", from The American Spectator, March 2001. "I remember that in this little prep school that I went to, the Dwight Englewood School in New Jersey, we had to say the Lord's Prayer in homeroom."
  2. ^ Rochester Review: The Optimist Reigns Again
  3. ^ Kudlow's Blog: High for the Holidays
  4. ^ Economist Is Said to Enter A Six-Month Drug Program - New York Times
  5. ^ National Review Online: Shreds of Evidence
  6. ^ Salon.com: Andrew Sullivan's selective Enron outrage
  7. ^ [http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2008/04/stupidest-man-a.html Brad Delong Critic
  8. ^ Letter to the President on economic growth
  9. ^ Mercatus Center: Lawrence Kudlow - Distinguished Scholar
  10. ^ Catholic Advisory Board Members of the Ave Maria Mutual Funds
  11. ^ Jack Kemp Institute at Pepperdine University's School of Public Policy

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