Henry Kaufman

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Henry Kaufman (born October 26, 1927 in Wenings , Upper Hesse ) is an American economist . From 1962 to 1987 he was a banker (most recently Managing Director) at the Salomon Brothers bank .

Kaufman founded an investment and advisory firm Henry Kaufman & Co in 1988, which he also runs. Since he correctly predicted the credit crunch that followed in 1966, he has been one of Wall Street's respected voices . In 1982, when the stock market bottomed out, he predicted a big boom in the stock market and was right: an eight-year surge followed. However, towards the end of the boom, he was one of the first to warn of what he believed to be far excessive prices.

Since 2001 in particular, in articles and interviews in the New York Times in particular, he has criticized the banks in the USA granting frivolous loans, deregulation and new financial products, and a lack of fragmented supervision threatening the economy with immense damage. He interpreted the sharp rise in share prices as a price bubble. This skeptical and critical view led to him being nicknamed Dr. Doom (Dr. Misfortune Prophet) was called.

In 2000 he published his memoirs in the book On Money and Markets: A Wall Street Memoir which was also published in German in 2001. In addition to the family's escape from National Socialist Germany and his experiences at Salomon and on Wall Street, he also describes his insights into the markets. Since that time he has continuously warned about the mistakes of the banks and the banking supervision.

In November 2007 he declared z. B. in the Süddeutsche Zeitung : "Central banks shy away from saying openly that there is a speculative bubble in the credit market . They say: We don't know when a credit bubble will arise, but we know what to do when a bubble bursts : Lower interest rates, provide liquidity and support the system. I don't think this is a very good tactic, because it allows the creation of excessive liquidity and excessive credit. This prevents the central bank from doing its main task: supporting continuous and sustainable economic growth. It is certainly a lot nicer, as a central bank, to just control the money supply and not be disturbed by second rate mortgages, aggressive trading practices and the like. Central bankers expect the market to clear it all up, but the market doesn't clear it up. "

biography

Henry Kaufman was born in 1927 as the son of a butcher in the small German town of Wenings. In 1937 the Jewish family managed to escape the racist persecution of the Germans to the USA. In New York , where the family settled, he attended Washington Heights High School. He studied economics first at New York University and then at Columbia University , where he obtained an MBA. After graduating, he worked for five years as a credit analyst at an industrial bank. During this time he earned his Ph.D. in evening classes at New York University. Kaufman then worked for five years at the US central bank , the Federal Reserve Bank , in the research department. In 1962 he moved to Salomon Brothers & Hutzler. There, as chief economist, he became the superior of 450 analysts. In 1987 he lost the internal power struggle with a new generation of managers. In addition to his life story, his memoirs contain several chapters that are more like speeches or essays on developments and undesirable developments in the financial markets, such as Learning From Financial Crises, The Urgent Need for Regulatory and Supervisory Reform, Financial Institutions in the New Century

Kaufmann is married to Elaine Kaufmann and donates large sums for social causes. In 2010 he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences .

Publications

Books

  • Henry Kaufman: Interest Rates, the Markets, & the New Financial World , Crown, 1986, ISBN 978-0-8129-1333-0
  • Henry Kaufman: Money and Markets. Learn from the legend Henry Kaufman . WMI Verlagsservice, Landsberg / Lech 2001, ISBN 3-478-38810-4

Essays

  • The integrity of credit , Salomon Brothers, 1985
  • The need for an improved system of financial regulation (bond market research). Salomon, Brothers, 1987

Honors

  • honorary Doctor of Laws degree from New York University in 1982
  • honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree from Yeshiva University in 1986
  • George S. Eccles Prize for excellence in economic writing from the Columbia Business School for his book, Interest Rates, the Markets, and the New Financial World.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ z. B. in German media in FOCUS interview No. 46, 2000
  2. ↑ http://kennethandersonlawofwar.blogspot.com/2007/11/henry-kaufman-in-second-wsj-commentary.html
  3. ↑ http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/k/henry_kaufman/index.html
  4. ↑ Nikolaus Piper: The market supervision has failed. Interview with Henry Kaufman. Süddeutsche Zeitung , November 8, 2007, p. 2 , accessed October 3, 2010 .
  5. ↑ David Warsh: Bull Run . Review of "On Money and Markets" in the New York Times, Jan. 21, 2001
  6. ↑ a b Archive link ( Memento of the original from September 17, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.iie.org
personal data
SURNAME Kaufman, Henry
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American economist
DATE OF BIRTH October 26, 1927
PLACE OF BIRTH Wenings