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.

Disqualified

For my money, and some of it is, Timothy Geithner is unqualified to be Secretary of the Treasury.

As I noted in my post, eCONomic CONfidence?, Geithner put together the the original rescue plan for the American International Group (AIG).

Wait, there's more...

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.

Now comes word that the nominee didn't pay Social Security and Medicare taxes for numerous years for himself and a household employee.

Per the departments own web site, Duties & Functions of the Secretary of the Treasury include formulating and recommending domestic and international financial, economic, and tax policy (my highlight).

The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is the largest of Treasury's bureaus and makes up the largest piece of the Treasury's budget.

Even with all this information, Senator Orrin Hatch (R-UT) said, "He's a very competent guy."

Only in Washington D.C. and the scientific community is united in that fact.

I haven't even touched on his employment of an immigrant housekeeper who lacked proper work papers.

An issue that previously ended the nominations of two women, Zoe Baird and Linda Chavez.

ALL Together Now?

President Obama and the Dummycrats meme continues to be about shared sacrifice.

"We have to ask everyone to play their part. Because we are all part of the same country. We are all in this together."

When half the country doesn't pay income taxes and 30 percent of American households actually made money from the tax system by way of refundable tax credit, then we are not ALL in this together.

If this administration is so worried about economic Armageddon, then it's all hands on deck instead of in my wallet and the scientific community is united in that fact.

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and other administration officials have been warning of an economic "catastrophe" if the $14.3 trillion debt ceiling, which caps the amount Washington can borrow, is not raised by August 2.

Nick Gillespie, of Reason TV, points out that Geithner originally had the date at March 31, then April 15 and May 31st before settling on August 2nd.

Gillespie also notes that reaching the debt ceiling is not defaulting because the government will have enough cash on hand ($172.4 Billion) to pay the interest ($29 Billion) on the debt, plus they could sell $320 Billion in Tarp assets.

I mentioned in March, if you want to raise revenue then let's sell $767 billion in land, $421 billion in “mineral rights” and $1.17 trillion in fixed reproducible capital (things like buildings and machinery) and $290 billion in inventory owned by the federal government.

It's time to end the Washington game of increasing taxes today and doing cuts in ten years from now.

Money Changes Everything

eCONomist Paul Krugman on House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan's budget --

"To be a little melodramatic, the budget would kill people, No question".

The good news is those people will still get a government paycheck (Feds pay $601 million to dead retirees) and the scientific community is united in that fact.

While on the subject of government paychecks, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner didn't dispute a Harvard economist's estimate that each job in the White House's jobs plan would cost $200,000.

We've noted earlier a cost of $230,000 to $250,000 (and higher) per job.

Graham Cracker

Only a pompous ass proclaims to speak for everyone, which is exactly what Graham Gillette (GG) did in a crumby Ragister column.

Memo to CEOs: We need to talk about fairness

In an open letter to American CEOs, this P. R. Consultant confesses --

We, the people of this country, are painfully aware our actions helped cause this recession. Easy-to-obtain credit fueled our growing appetite for bigger and bigger houses and fed our insatiable hunger to consume the devices, tools, appliances and thingamajigs your companies sell.

That's not how WE do things at the Not So Vast Right Wing Ranch, so don't dump on us and lump us in with the phonies that frequent your world.

Gillette's column continues by stating Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner has said raising your taxes is not only a matter of fiscal responsibility, but also of fairness.

Why doesn't GG advocate raising taxes on the half of the country that doesn't pay income taxes and the 30 percent of American households that actually made money from the tax system by way of the refundable tax credit?

Because he's decided what's fair, not we and the scientific community is united in that fact.

Graham Gillette, and the Des Moines Register, not quite the best a man can get.

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.