One of the Worst-Timed Op-Eds Ever, By One of John McCain's Economic Advisers
| Mon Sep. 15, 2008 8:55 AM PDT
Both Kevin and I have noted the absurd Washington Post essay by Donald Luskin titled "A NATION OF EXAGGERATORS: Quit Doling Out That Bad-Economy Line." It was published on Sunday morning, 12 to 24 hours before news broke that the American economy is basically in shambles, making it one of the most poorly timed pieces of punditry ever.
But what Kevin and I both missed is that Luskin advises John McCain on the economy! He admits it halfway through the piece, saying, "Full disclosure: I'm an adviser to John McCain's campaign."
Get a load of the wisdom Luskin is providing McCain. This is from the piece:
Things today just aren't that bad. Sure, there are trouble spots in the economy, as the government takeover of mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and jitters about Wall Street firm Lehman Brothers, amply demonstrate. And unemployment figures are up a bit, too. None of this, however, is cause for depression -- or exaggerated Depression comparisons.
Luskin follows this with a number of arguments (bolstered by statistics, of course) that would cause anyone with a rudimentary grasp of the American economy to spit out their coffee. Like this one:
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A housing "slump," a housing "crisis"? A "severe" price decline? According to the latest report from the National Association of Realtors, the median price of an existing home is up 8.5 percent from the low of last February. And according to the U.S. Census Bureau, the median price of a new home is up 1.3 percent from the low of last December. Home prices may not be at all-time highs -- and there are pockets of continuing decline in some urban areas -- but overall they've clearly stopped going down and have started to recover. So why keep proclaiming a "crisis" after it's over?
Sure, yeah, the housing crisis (sorry, "crisis") is over. Over! All those investment banks that are tanking because of their investments in mortgage-backed securities... well, shoot, I guess Donald Luskin will have a hard time explaining them. But frankly, Luskin is more interested in telling you to shut your worrying pie-hole. He writes:
McCain campaign adviser and former U.S. senator Phil Gramm was right in July when he said that our current state "is a mental recession." Maybe he was out of line when he added that the United States has become "a nation of whiners." But when it comes to the economy, we have surely become a nation of exaggerators.
Got that? Donald Luskin doesn't want to hear one word about gas prices, you underinsured, economically-insecure middle class putz! The economy is wonderful and unicorns are prancing with anthropomorphized rainbows among showers of glitter in the clouds.
Comments
Submitted by Hit Em On The Economy (not verified) on Mon Sep. 15, 2008 10:43 AM PDT.
Obama/Biden needs to just keep hitting McCain/Palin on the economy over and over again. Remember '92. It will work.
It must be so nice in the America McCain and his buddies inhabit. The only cloud in the sky is the proles and our baffling whining. It's fixable, though. We don't need change, we need psychotropics in the water supply! Yeah! Bring on the Seroquel!
What people in the USA have not grasped is the connecting of the dots between the destruction of the middle class and the neo-con plans for endless war. They WANT more poor people. When the only jobs left for the young are the armed-forces, the fodder for the endless war will be assured. They learned from Vietnam--college kids do not make good soldiers. Poor out-of-work dudes do.
thats exactly what the repubes want ....a perpetual poor class. and they are hell bent to get it. what better way to rule the world than with conscripts. just dont piss off the chinese, they have a bigger conscript army than we do. i see that eventually you will be told either go to the poor prison or join the army.
If Obama/Biden will NEVER go on the defensive, but stay on the OFFENSIVE and keep pounding their defense offensively, there is no way they can lose. Bush has driven our country into the ground and McCain IS McBush. How about the tight hug McCain gives his Bush; appears to be relaxing on Bush's shoulder, since Bush, like Brownie, has done a Hell-of-a job. Except for the whiners, McCain thinks the economy is wonderful and everything is OK, like Marie Antoinette of France before the French Revolution -- check out this picture:
Submitted by DAVID (not verified) on Mon Sep. 15, 2008 4:23 PM PDT.
I didn't have to go far to find the whinners,,I just read your comments
David, if you can look at your health insurance bills, your gasoline and fuel bills, your children's tuition bills, your income, your job security, your home value,the food you eat, the air your breathe, the economic status of your friends, family and neighbors, the availability of homeowners insurance (if you live in a flood zone or coastal zone), and the overall trust you feel in the American system after 8 years of ignorance and incompetence, and not see for yourself that anything has changed for the worse,then you must be in the 5% of the country that caused the problem. But your solution, to call people names rather than address their concerns, is not atypical of those that wish to cloud the issues.
White male prejudice in small towns with small companies:
The essentials of thinking in the barroom circuit who have marginal resources are these: Vote Republican because the less interference by Government, the less there is to f*** up. Taxes are the greatest cause of hardship and people who don't pay their rent and welfare queens are the cause of high taxes. Unions are
run by racketeers who take your money and if your boss didn't give you a job where would you be?
How to talk to women, they believe in talking like McCain: "I don't plaster on the makeup like a trollop, you cunt"
It has been my experience in small groups if this type of thinking is in majority the social pressure is menacing to any dissenter who cannot take refuge in another part of the building. The majority in such situation are types who demand that you tell them how you are voting.
Is that the average American, as complained in some of the other posts? Will the election answer this question?
Mr. Luskin thinks you're an idiot. John McCain thinks his advisors are the smartest people on earth. What business do YOU have perpetuating our mental recession? Get back in line, friggin' terrorist.
Of course, the column that came out yesterday was chock full of STATISTICS. Luskin's article, beyond being flat wrong in many places, is misleading. Of course, it's COMPLETELY valid to compare snapshots of hand-picked economic indicators to *similar* hand-picked economic data points during Clinton's reign of terror. Everyone remembers how bad 1999 was, right?
Unfortunately, those economic indicators are calculated regularly. Rather than citing a few blips of data on an otherwise blank slate, Mr. Luskin is guilty of lying outright and by omission. Mr. Luskin's data plots along a graph and exposes that he's full of s***.
Remember, Fannie Mae could skyrocket 30% tomorrow and in the end it'd be worth $0.92 a share. Do yourself a favor: view the share price of FNM for the last 20 years and question how screwed up our economy is now?
The phony war on terror, the war against drugs, the anti-gay and anti-abortion campaigns have been only ways to divert attention, while the mass people were being robbed. This has been warned by many good people, since Henry Ford or Louis McFadden till John Paul. The "High Finance" has ripped the American people and has taken business elsewhere.
The large corporation have invested in new-emerging countries and the American public has been left busted. They have now a devalued currency, worthless stocks and have lost their pension funds. Ah! But they can always elect MacCain - Pahlin and even start a new war against Russia!
Oh please. As an ordinary person who actually lives in this country, people are hurting. Every business and business owner will tell you the same thing.
People are being laid off left and right! (No pun intended). Hasn't anyone connected the dots to realize that most of the foreclosures involve people who are losing their jobs and small business owners
who are seeing their business down to levels not imagined.
Help! Can the "Smart" people take over the government again?
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