Janeway, Eliot

▪ 1994

      U.S. economist and writer (b. Jan. 1, 1913, New York, N.Y.—d. Feb. 8, 1993, New York), proposed the controversial and thought-provoking theory that political pressures shape economic and market trends and was dubbed "Calamity Janeway" on Wall Street because of his perpetually gloomy forecasts on the stock market. Janeway, one of the foremost political economists in the U.S., studied economics at Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y., and did postgraduate work at the London School of Economics and Political Science. After writing a series of articles for Nation magazine on the looming 1937-38 inventory crisis and offering solutions to that problem, he influenced some policy-making bodies within the Franklin D. Roosevelt administration. Politically independent, Janeway criticized the economic policies of presidents from Franklin D. Roosevelt to Ronald Reagan in books, in columns he wrote for the Chicago Tribune-New York News Syndicate, and in his weekly financial newsletters, the backbone of Janeway Publishing and Research Corp., which he operated from his home. Janeway's first book, Struggle for Survival (1951), was followed by a series of works for the private investor—What Shall I Do with My Money? (1970), You and Your Money (1972), and Musings on Money: How to Make Dollars out of Sense (1976)—and by two volumes that analyzed government policies, Prescriptions for Prosperity (1983) and The Economics of Chaos (1989).

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