Economists opposing the bailout publicly hid their Cato Institute affiliations.

Evidence

What is noteworthy about subsequent events is the way in which agnotological activity rushed in to fill the apparent intellectual vacuum around the bailout bill, both prior to passage and for long thereafter. One node of activity became centered upon John Cochrane and his Chicago colleagues Luigi Zingales, Gary Becker, and Raghuram Rajan. Cochrane was explicitly identified by National Public Radio as the ringleader of economists in opposition to the Paulson plan, while the quartet were ubiquitous in sympathetic outlets like the Wall Street Journal, The Economist, and even PBS. However, in those contexts he was almost never publicly linked to his affiliation with the Cato Institute, one of the hardest-core shells of the Russian doll. — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 639

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the ‘thought collective’ methodology and the Russian-doll structure of the austerity network this reader is tracing. — connects to: Economists publicly deny the industry ties that structure their profession. — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 566; Economists advising on financial reform mostly hid private industry affiliations — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 577