Yes, Dr. No has become Dr. Phil and Johnny Mac has elegantly tossed him under the bus. All in one day. Golly, I love American politics!
To recap:
1. Phil Gramm is video taped saying that "we have sort of become a nation of whiners" and that the country is in a "mental recession" (Ironically, Gramm himself was whining when he made these remarks and quite obviously not running on all cylinders in the mental department either)!
2. BO gleefully points out that America already has a national psychiatrist named Dr. Phil and notes that we don't need another.
3. McCain, who has been going around the country taking great pains to feel everyone's pain, says Gramm does not speak for him and when asked about Gramm's likely position in a McCain Administration more or less says he'd like to send him to Belarus but he doesn't think the locals would stand for it!!!
Could we please have presidential elections every two years? That would be great.
Of course Gramm was totally right in that the gloom and doom rhetoric far outpasses any actual bad current economic outcomes, but totally wrong in the sense that when you want a bunch of whiners to vote for your candidate so that you can get a cushy government job the last thing you should do is call them a bunch of whiners!!
4 comments:
I still think Gramm expects to be Treasury secretary under McCain, and that he'd be a top candidate, regardless of what McCain may say right now.
"Of course Gramm was totally right in that the gloom and doom rhetoric far outpasses any actual bad current economic outcomes"
Seriously? Have you tried to buy or sell a house recently? Have you tried to find a new job recently? Both the housing market and job market are tough right now, far tougher than they were even 2 years ago.
Thanks for your comments. Peter, I expect that you may well be right.
JAT, several of my neighbors have sold houses recently. they didn't get what they were hoping. Three of my grad students got new jobs this year, they did very well. However, one of that is really relevant. In my opinion the rhetoric of doom is not matched by the aggregate economic outcomes to date. We are not *yet* in a recession, let alone a severe or protracted one. Of course, that doesn't mean that many people are not having problems or that things should not be a lot better.
The July 31st advance release of Q2 GDP growth will be telling. I can't imagine it will be >1%.
The scary thing is the two government gas pedals (Fed Funds and deficit spending) have been mashed to the floor for a while now.
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