Childhood & Early Life
Lawrence Alan Kudlow was born on August 20, 1947, in New Jersey, in an affluent Jewish family, to Irving Howard Kudlow and Ruth Kudlow
He received his early education from Elisabeth Morrow School in Englewood, New Jersey, where he studied till the sixth grade. He finished high school from Dwight-Englewood School, also an exclusive private educational institution.
He took admission at the University of Rochester, New York from where he graduated in 1969 with a degree in history. During his Rochester days, “Kuddles”, as he was popularly known, excelled at lawn tennis and was also an active member of the Students for a Democratic Society, a left-wing antiwar group.
In 1970, Larry Kudlow joined many rising young democrats, including Bill Clinton, to work in the ‘New Politics’ senatorial campaign of Joseph Duffey in Connecticut. Kudlow impressed with his brilliant district coordinator skills.
In 1971, Kudlow enrolled at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs of the Princeton University to study politics and economics, however, he quit before obtaining his master’s degree.
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Career
Kudlow joined the Federal Reserve Bank of New York as a staff economist and within a short time proved his mettle, switched jobs and became the chief economist at ‘Paine Webber’ doubling his salary in the process. That he was just 28 and without a degree in economics did not seem to matter.
In 1979, by which time he had become a strong advocate of free trade, he was hired by Bear Stearns, a top investment bank as its chief economist.
In late 1981, he became chief economist at the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) in the first Reagan administration. He, however, had serious disagreements with his boss, David Stockman, the OMB director and left in 1983. While he was in OMB, he also served the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation as an advisory committee member.
For the next few years, Kudlow operated his own consultancy firm in Washington DC but in 1987, returned to Bear Stearns as its senior managing director and chief economist. In early 1994, he was, however, sacked when he missed making a crucial investor meet speech due to his addiction to cocaine.
Kudlow was also engaged by A. B. Laffer & Associates in the capacity of an economic counsel and also on the board of directors of ‘Empower America’ that later merged with ‘Citizens for a Sound Economy’ to give birth to ‘FreedomWorks’. He is also the consulting chief economist and a founder director of ‘American Skandia Life Assurance’, a subsidiary of the insurance major, ‘Prudential Financial’.
On December 1, 1997, HarperCollins published Kudlow's book, ‘American Abundance: The New Economic and Moral Prosperity’.
In May 2001, Kudlow assumed charge as the Economics Editor at National Review Online.
In 2002, Kudlow commenced co-hosting a TV show on CNBC with Jim Cramer; it success let to a string of shows on CNBC like ‘Kudlow & Cramer’ that was followed by ‘Kudlow & Company’, and finally, ‘The Kudlow Report’ that ended a successful run in 2014. In late 2008, he also co-hosted ‘The Call’ on the same channel. All the shows were marked by Kudlow’s assertive style and optimistic economic outlook.
He was inducted into a six-member state tax commission by George Pataki, Governor of New York, in April 2005.
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A tireless commentator, he is a regular on CNBC’s ‘Squawk Box’ and co-hosts ‘The John Batchelor Show’ in addition to ‘The Larry Kudlow Show’, a radio talk show on WABC, he contribues to CNBC.com, and blogs on ‘Kudlow's Money Politic$’.
As a syndicated journalist, his columns appear in major national newspapers like the ‘Washington Times’, ‘City Journal’ of ‘Manhattan Institute for Policy Research’, and the ‘Cato Journal’ published by ‘Cato Institute’, among others.
In February 2009, rumors about Kudlow running for the Senate against Christopher Dodd in the 2010 Connecticut Senate election surfaced, which, however, were negated by him shortly thereafter. Though Kudlow himself expressed an interest on January 29, 2010, in the Senate seat occupied by Charles Schumer, he never raised the subject ever again. His name was again suggested as a potential Senate candidate to run against Senator Richard Blumenthal in Connecticut, however, Kudlow declined yet again.
On April 2, 2018, Kudlow was appointed by President Trump as the Director of the National Economic Council replacing Gary Cohn.
Personal Life & Legacy
Lawrence Kudlow’s first marriage was in 1974 to Nancy Ellen Gerstein, an editor in the fiction department of ‘New Yorker’ magazine, however, the two divorced just about a year later.
His second marriage in 1981 was to Susan (Cullman) Sicher of the reputed Cullman and Bloomingdale’s families. Kudlow was then the assistant director for economic policy in the Office of Management and Budget. He married his current wife, Judith "Judy" Pond, an artist’ in 1986.
Born a Jew who had his bar mitzvah when 13, Kudlow became a Roman Catholic in 1990 under the influence of Father C. John McCloskey III.
Following his ignominious exit from ‘Bear Sterns’ in 1994, he enrolled into a 12-step rehab program to deal with his addiction to drugs and alcohol, a problem that he has not been shy of publicly acknowledging.
He lists his hobbies as golf and tennis.
