Who is he: Frederic Mishkin has been a professor at the Columbia Business School since 1983 and also very involved with the Federal Reserve, even serving on the Board of Governors of the Fed from 2006 to 2008.
Dr. Frederic Mishkin, like most establishment economists, is sort of a hired gun for the monetary elite, apparently serving as an expert when needed to promote whatever course of action is desired by the Anglo-American establishment.
Background: Frederic Mishkin was born in New York City on January 11, 1951 and received B.S. and Ph.D degrees from MIT. After receiving his doctorate degree and while teaching at Columbia, Frederic Mishkin worked at many levels in the banking industry and provided advice and leadership as prompted. Dr. Mishkin served as Executive Vice President and Director of Research for the New York Fed as well as an Associate Economist for the Fed's Federal Open Market Committee.
In addition, Mishkin edited the New York Fed's Economic Policy Review, was a consultant to the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund and other elite banking institutions around the world.
On September 5th, 2006, Dr. Frederic Mishkin became a member of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve to complete a term expiring in 2014. In May of 2008, however, he submitted his resignation in order to work on a Keynesian textbook for the Columbia Business School. Yet the world will not likely hear much more from Frederic Mishkin as his usefulness had ended following revelations of incompetence (if not selling bad advice for a fee and at the urging of certain financial insiders).
Dr. Mishkin was paid almost $125,000 in 2006 by the Icelandic Chamber of Commerce to compose a report in which he highlighted the strengths of Iceland's economic miracle, which in reality was built upon massive banking and government debts that generated large profits for certain New York banking interests. Just after this, when the debt-burdened economy of Iceland collapsed, Dr. Mishkin apparently changed the name of his report from "Financial Stability in Iceland" to "Financial Instability in Iceland" on his resume. Miskin claims it was a typo.
Most mainstream economists outside the Austrian School are bought, paid for and controlled like trained parrots to mimic the economic forecasts desired by the financial elites. However, Dr. Mishkin's overt actions embarrassed his employers. What is most interesting is that Frederic Mishkin's wrong-headed Icelandic calls were probably not a problem to anybody but him. It was an attempted correction that caused a ruckus.
In fact, most mainstream economists and Wall Street experts are usually totally wrong about economic and market forecasts. Observers are puzzled by why such individuals, like Dr. Mishkin, tend to flourish despite their apparent incompetence.
What these outside observers may not understand is that these individuals are hired not to do the best job they can, but simply to be optimistic and positive about their employers' activities, which are more often than not being made to the detriment of clients and individual investors. These highly trained professionals then (like Frederic Mishkin) are emplaced not to be correct but to provide cover.