Paul Volcker, at 91, Sees ‘a Hell of a Mess in Every Direction’; “our educational system has been perverted by money”

Adrew Ross Sorkin:

But things have changed. Today, he said, Washington is overrun by lobbyists and think tanks. Mr. Volcker, who started a nonprofit to improve education for public service, contends that our educational system has been perverted by money.

Schools like the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard and the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton, he said, have failed to educate a new generation of civil servants. He said they no longer taught governing but policy — a shift that he contended allowed them to hold forums and discussions with generals and under secretaries.

“Rich guys,” he said, “like to go.” He called it “hobnobbing wholesale.”

“They can argue war and peace and poverty and everything else,” he said. “But when you go to a school of public policy, you’re not learning how to run the goddamn government. You’re learning how to debate political issues.”