I have written about Todd Buchholz before.
We met in 1983 on my very first visit to Washington DC and we've kept in touch ever since. He and his family are occasional visitors to the UK and three years ago we visited them at their home in San Diego.
Todd is one of the smartest – and funniest – people I know. He's studied at Harvard and Cambridge. He's worked as an economic advisor in the White House. He's written for the New York Times, Wall Street Journal and Washington Post, as well as appearing on all the major television networks in America.
His books have been translated into numerous languages and his first book, New Ideas from Dead Economists, is considered a “classic” by the American Economic Association.
His latest book, The Price of Prosperity: Why Rich Nations Fail and How to Renew Them, published by HarperCollins in June, prompted this review in the Sunday Times last week:
The Price of Prosperity is one of those swaggering, world-ranging “big ideas” books that sets out to analyse the world’s problems and then provide solutions ... Highly entertaining, far-sighted and enjoyably acerbic, [it] vividly evokes the vast centrifugal forces that threaten the First World today.
Immigration breaks the bonds between neighbours, wealth separates the rich and poor, government debt abuses the trust between present and future generations — and the anxiety engendered by such forces is now producing populist counter-movements that, as Britain’s Brexit experience shows, are very much one-nation, anti-global and anti immigration. Doctrinaire liberals might despise them, but they might do better to understand them.
Todd's Midas touch also extends to Broadway where he was a founding producer of Jersey Boys, the musical that became a smash hit worldwide. (For "founding producer" read "investor" or, better still, "angel".)
With that sort of luck (and CV) Todd Buchholz would make the perfect President.
You read it here first, folks!