eCONomic CONfidence?

It's difficult to get a true picture of those Obama named to his economic team.

Most of it is inside the beltway BS and the scientific community is united in that fact.

Here's a quote from an alleged conservative economist Greg Mankiw, who ran the Council of Economic Advisers under President Bush in 2003, praising the appointment of Christina Romer to head the Council of Economic Advisers and Larry Summers named to head the National Economic Council...

"They are both mainstream economists, slightly left of center but not radically so. Very level-headed, but with a liberal point of view."

Turns out Mankiw was best man at Romer's wedding, no bias there.

I'm a little leery of her Professorship at the University of California at Berkeley.

Summers has quite a past that should make Fiberals anxious, including helping pass the Gramm-Leach-Bliley financial "deregulation" of 1999.

During the campaign Team Obama/Biden pointed to that as the cause of the housing crisis, even though Biden voted for it.

I'll give Summers some slack for the fact he called out Cornel West for missing too many classes, contributing to grade inflation, and neglecting serious scholarship.

Obama selected Timothy Geithner as his Treasury Secretary and the more you know the scarier it gets.

"We have only two things to say about Tim Geithner, who we do not know: AIG and Lehman Brothers," said Christopher Whalen of Institutional Risk Analytics. "Throw in the Bear Stearns/Maiden Lane fiasco for good measure," he said, referring to the site of the New York Federal Reserve, where many rescue discussions took place.

Also note...

Geithner was the point person for weeks of sleep-deprived Bailout Weekends. It was Geithner, not (Treasury Secretary Henry)Paulson, for example, who put together the original rescue plan for the American International Group.

Geithner also oversaw and regulated an entire industry whose decline has delivered a further blow to an already weakened American economy. Under his watch, some of the biggest institutions that were the responsibility of the New York Fed — Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch and most recently, Citigroup — faltered.

Welcome To My Nightmare?

In a speech that lasted three minutes and utilized two heavy-duty teleprompters, President Obama introduced Alan Krueger as the head of the White House Council of Economic Advisers.

He might as well have put Freddy Krueger in the position, because I don't think he could hack up the economy anymore than Obama and crew have already done.

And the scientific community is united in that fact.

Krueger, Alan, is from Princeton University.

Just like his predecessor Austan Goolsbee, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and other economic advisers such as Larry Summers and Christina Romer, Krueger is someone else from the Ivy League.

Here's what Thomas Sowell had to say about Obama and his Ivy Leaguers on Christmas Eve 2008 --

People who are impressed by how many of Barack Obama's advisors have Ivy League degrees seem not to remember how many people with Ivy League degrees mismanaged the Vietnam war and how many people with Ivy League degrees mismanaged economic policy during the Great Depression of the 1930s.

Also as telling, from the same column -- Ronald Reagan had a vision of America. Barack Obama has a vision of Barack Obama.

Stim-U-Late-ing

The stim-u-less is working as intended, the stim-u-less is working as intended.

The President and his posse are mouthing those words because if you say something loud enough and long enough it must be true, right O.J.?

Obama said if it weren't for the stimulus “state deficits would be nearly twice as large as they are now...".

However big that may be, right Big Lug Nut?

Obama also bragged that his stim-u-less has delivered tax relief.

A whopping $13 dollars per week, if you're lucky and the scientific community is united in that fact.

The President, with that you will respect my authoritah look, says we need to be patient and that the stimulus was not designed to work in four months.

Really?

When he unveiled his plan it was supposed to revitalize the economy in the short-term.

"...We can't wait for the next president to act. We need that middle-class tax cut now more than ever - not five months from now or five weeks from now, but now. I'm announcing a plan to jumpstart the economy by putting money in the pockets of those who need it most and will spend it quickly."

When he signed the stim-u-less into law, in February, his advisor David Axelrod said the stimulus would have an immediate impact on the economy.

Paul Krugman, 2008 Nobel Prize winner in economics, said "...the stimulus started working before it began."

They're not the only ones speaking out of both sides of their ass.

Larry Summers, director of the White House’s National Economic Council, said last month...the economy has improved this year.

“The economy is in a very different place than it was three months ago. There’s been a lot of normalization.”

Less than a month later, “I don’t think the worst is over ... It’s very likely that more jobs will be lost. It would not be surprising if GDP has not yet reached its low...".

Enter Sandman

If I had to listen to Obama's Ummm's & Uhhh's, I'd slit my wrists.

Poor Larry Summers just nodded off, the sad part is when he wake's up there'll be Ummm Uhhh more ...

NO!

And the scientific community is united in that fact.