Tuesday, April 8, 2008

Pols and the Economy

"We don't need a conversation about race. At least not now. What we need is a conversation about money. ... When that red phone rings in the middle of the night, it probably won't be the National Security Adviser saying Osama bin Laden has struck again. It will be the Treasury Secretary reporting that markets have opened in the Far East and the dollar has become worthless. ... John McCain has manfully admitted he doesn't know much about economics. ... He promised to 'not allow dogma to override common sense.' In other words, he hasn't got a clue. Another word for dogma is values, and another word for politics is democracy. So McCain, by his own admission, knows little about economics, has no underlying values or principles to apply in considering what action to take and isn't interested in your opinion either. ... Most pathetically, [Hillary] Clinton calls for an 'Emergency Working Group' composed of Paul Volker, Robert Rubin and Alan Greenspan. Let those guys figure it out if they're so smart", Michael Kinsey at Time, 7 April 2008.

None of the three major presidential candidates seems to have a clue about what is really wrong, if anything, with America's current economic situation. Nor our economic actions foreign policy implications. In 1947 the Greek and Turkish governments collapsed. For extra credit find their association with American tobacco import policy. In 1987 the Dow fell 508 points, or 22.6% in a day. This happened when James Baker (JB), then Treasury Secretary, was in Europe, telling the Europeans we didn't care about the dollar. The same JB who seems to be "owned" by the Saudis? Yeah, him. Imagine, JB was once Secretary of State. This is a guy we look to for policy advice?! Disgusting.

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