Windy City Struggle Session | National Review
arald Uhlig, a University of Chicago economist, was terminated from his role as a consultant to the Chicago Fed and placed on leave from his editorial position at the Journal of Political Economy. His transgression? A tweet voicing opposition to defunding the police. The Black Lives Matter movement, said Uhlig, just torpedoed itself, with its full-fledged support of #defundthepolice. We need more police, we need to pay them more, we need to train them better, he added.
Uhlig cited policy reform proposals by the Democratic Party as an alternative to defunding.
So the Chicago Fed fired a distinguished economist because he tweeted something that said he disagreed with the BLM idea of ‘defunding the police”? Am I getting that right? Because that’s insane if I’m getting it right. The idea of ‘defunding the police’ as I thought was widely acknowledged, is deeply stupid, or else, a really clever way to undermine our social contract. That’s my view! Don’t most people think we need police? At least some? Are we nuts or something? What is going on here? Am I not allowed to be critical of even really stupid ideas? This, whatever it is, has got to stop.