Chairman of America's Federal Reserve, appointed by Richard Nixon in 1970. He was the last Fed chair with a truly close relationship with the president. Under pressure from the White House, Burns cut interest rates, helping to cause a fearsome surge in inflation that took more than a decade, and several recessions, to tame. Thomas Drechsel of the University of Maryland estimates that raising political pressure on the Fed by half as much as Nixon did, for six months, would lift prices by 8% and do nothing for economic growth. His chairmanship remains notorious.
Nitwit ideas are for emergencies. You use them when you've got nothing else to try. If they work, they go in the Book. Otherwise you follow the Book, which is largely a collection of nitwit ideas that worked.