by Nadav Orian Peer

Since time immemorial the Day of the Dead has been used by the living to come into presence with the Ancestors. Perry understood this presence. He revered his intellectual ancestors, drawing not only inspiration from them, but comfort and confidence. Minsky and Schumpeter, Kindelberger and de Cecco, Fischer Black, Treynor and Stigum, Bagehot and Hawtrey, and the list goes on and on. To Perry, these were not just brilliant thinkers, but his “adoptive family”. Perry’s reverence for the Ancestors was only matched by the courage to go against the grain that marked so much of his career. Perry was not one to travel a well-plowed path that would have been easy for him to follow, and indeed, that he left at real risk to himself. The young Perry was a clever person with a natural suspicion of cleverness. So he set on a path to become wise, and he did. 

Since time immemorial the living have spent the Day of the Dead grieving the Ancestors, while also celebrating the time that they had spent with us. The human condition is long on the life-force and short on the precariousness of it all.  Perry understood the bitter-sweet well. More than any other style, Perry mastered the biography. Perry’s biographies were not just intellectual biographies. They were full accounts of a life lived, or rather, of a life lived well according to Perry. He wrote not only about his protagonist’s ideas, but their childhood, family, passions, struggles, and temperament. It is as if Perry believed that any idea worth writing about could only be understood in the context of a life fully lived. When Perry passed, he took with him the only biographer that could have ever done justice to his story (wrong-way risk, Perry). But there cannot be any doubt that Perry’s own life was well-lived. Perry’s intellect –which in any other person would have been so intimidating— was complemented by the warmth of his big heart, the mind worms, the stories, the child-like curiosity, the elegance with which he carried himself, the sometimes-dark sense of humor.  It was always Perry the person that we loved, not just the brilliant thinker. 

Since time immemorial the living scattered marigold petals on the Day of the Dead, forming a path that the Ancestors could travel from the World of the Dead to the World of the Living, if only for one day a year. Perry understood the power of flowers well. He loved his garden and nourished its growth.  Even so and even more, he loved and nourished his students. He often spoke of “letting a thousand wildflowers bloom.” Each flower should express its own life-force, not the expectations of its gardener, mentor, or discipline. And bloom they did, a whole meadow of them. Dan, Zoltan, Anush, Dana, Cornel, Jay, Alex, Leah, Elham, Nathan, Larissa, Steffen, Jens, and the list goes on and on. Some I’ve had the pleasure of knowing personally, others I read, countless others I know are out there, here in the U.S. and all around the world. They are academics and practitioners, bankers and central bankers, traders and regulators, economists, but also political economists, historians, lawyers, international relations scholars, and sociologists.  And they do have a wild streak. 

Perry dedicated his latest book “For my teachers and students (from whom I have also learned).” He was the dealer he so often spoke of, bringing together on his balance sheet his teachers and his students. That we are all able to communicate –across time, space, and discipline— that is Perry’s inside spread at work.  

Now Perry has joined the Money View Ancestors. He has become to us what Minsky and Kindleberger were to him. Can you imagine the conversations they’re having? 

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