And then there’s David Malpass, also both a bubble denier and a Bernanke-basher. Much press commentary has noted his 2007 insistence, as chief economist at Bear Stearns, that there was no reason to be worried about the financial system. A few months later his own firm imploded.

But I think his most revealing piece of commentary was a 2011 screed against low interest rates and what he considered a “weak dollar” policy. A low rate policy, he declared, hurts the economy because it “discourages thrift,” while the weak dollar was bad for confidence, or something.

This was really bad economics. At the time, America had 9 percent unemployment, entirely because of inadequate private spending; to the extent that low interest rates were discouraging thrift and making people spend rather than save, that would have been a good thing, not a problem. And Malpass’s argument about the dollar was just incoherent.

What’s really striking, however, is that the policies Malpass attacked were precisely the policies Donald Trump now demands: low rates and a weaker dollar. So why would Trump want to promote him, and people like him?

Here’s how I understand it: The first thing Trump looks for in an appointee is someone who shares his values — above all, his absolute lack of compassion for those less fortunate than himself. And if you want an economic official who doesn’t care about the poor or the unlucky, you must perforce go for a right-winger.

But Trump also has another criterion: He wants people who will be personally dependent on him, who don’t have any kind of professional reputation to defend and therefore won’t take a stand on principle. That is, he only wants hacks.

And here’s the thing: Right-wing hack economists are, with hardly any exceptions, hard-money, hyperinflation-is-around-the-corner types. So Trump ends up with officials whose past views are diametrically opposed to what he says now.