Why does Ron Suskind believe that the Treasury Department's Assistant Secretary for Economic Policy "carries the additional title--dating back to the nineteenth century--of 'Chief Economist of the United States'"?
And here it is again, via the magic of Kindle book search:
assistant secretary of the Treasury for economic policy and--in a term dating back to the eighteenth century--the "chief economist of the United States". Another holder of that title was Paul Volcker, when he had this job in 1969.
Hmmm… I had thought that Paul Volcker in 1969 was Undersecretary of the Treasury for Monetary Affairs--not Assistant Secretary for Economic Policy--and that his portfolio included not just Economic Policy, but also International Affairs and one of the Domestic Finance branches as well--I forget which one.
