The American Enterprise Institute community was deeply saddened when Arthur Brooks’s email arrived on Monday morning. In it, we learned that our beloved and eminent colleague, John H. Makin, had passed away.
John was among the most talented people I have ever met. An outstanding economist, he was awarded a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago and was Professor of Economics at the University of Washington. He had many peer-reviewed publications to his name. He became an institution at AEI with his Economic Outlook, a monthly essay of economic and policy analysis which he published for over twenty years. And if that’s not enough, he was also an extremely successful Wall Street economist.
Needless to say, an individual who can succeed so brilliantly in jobs that diverse is a very rare find indeed.
He was wonderful to me. A true mentor. John and his lovely wife Gwendolyn treated my wife and me to dinner at Filomena recently. I was looking forward to another dinner soon. John would often stop by my office just to chat — but he would always end up imparting warmth and wisdom. There were so many days when a fifteen minute talk with John was exactly what I needed. I’ll miss his visits very much.
It has been great to see the world honor John’s legacy. The Washington Post ran an obituary, as did the Wall Street Journal. And Gwendolyn wrote a reflection published by the Georgetown Dish.
Kevin Hassett and I penned some thoughts on Monday afternoon.
We’ll miss the sparkle in John’s eye, appearing moments before a devastating retort. We’ll miss how he forced us to go back to square one. We’ll miss how he’d lean in to make a point. We’ll miss receiving the emails he’d send from his iPad, breaking the rules of capitalization and punctuation. We’ll miss talking to him about cars — especially the race cars he loved to drive. We’ll miss his humor. We’ll miss his presence. We’ll miss him.
Rest in peace, dear friend.