Except among economists, John Taylor is not a householde name. He ought to be. He invented the 'Taylor Rule', an analytical device commonly employed to assess and guide monetary policy. As the unique top-flight macroeconomist in the upper echelons of the Bush administration, his resignation from the position of Undersecretary of the Treasury for International Affairs sends a terrible signal to the international financial community. It means that in the event of a dollar dump, there will be nobody in charge at Treasury who knows what he or she is doing.
This is really bad news. It means that like the diplomacy, American international financial policy is not controlled by ideologues with no technical expertise in matters that demand them. Taylor's departure could not come at a worse moment.