I think the reference to "the powers that be" is just asking whether there's editorial endorsement of an Op-ed. In particular, Jerome's.

Any Op-ed can be composed on-site and signed by those who wish to do so with or without editorial endorsement, but people feel it's a different matter to identify the signatories as "ET contributors" without asking for permission first.

Keynesianism is intellectually hard, as evidenced by the inability of many trained economists to get it - Paul Krugman