Stockman and the Austrians

And since the Austrian School has come up a couple times recently, I thought I'd mention something intriguing that I stumbled across:

David Stockman, Reagan OMB director, supply-side high priest, and all around budget badass recently came out of the closet...

...the Austrian school closet, that is. He's praising what he calls "the Austrian masters" and getting on board with the Austrian views about money and fiat currency. Thankfully, Austrian school economists haven't played a major role in public administration since Joseph Schumpeter ran the central bank of Austria in the 1920s (and Schumpeter isn't nearly as off the wall as the rest of them, anyway). I suppose the other close-call was the well known Ayn-Randian, Alan Greenspan. But he was effectively excommunicated from that odd little cult long go.

Anyway, I just thought that was interesting. My pile of books I want to read is already massive, and now I think I need to add Stockman's The Triumph of Politics to it. I should also read this. It's a famous expose of Stockman from a 1981 issue of The Atlantic. Stockman was, in his words, "taken to the woodshed" for the his loose lips with the author of the article. Interesting stuff. Depressions do strange things when it comes to ideological realignment and soul searching.