Bush, McCain, Obama, Volcker, Ears, and Surprises

by Don Boudreaux on October 22, 2008

in Complexity and Emergence, Current Affairs, Financial Markets, Politics

Andy Morriss — University of Illinois law prof, and my co-blogger at Market Correction — sent the following letters yesterday.  The first is to the Wall Street Journal; the second is to the Financial Times:

Sirs,

Rather than being reassured that Paul Volcker is “whispering
in Obama’s ear,” (“Volcker Makes a Comeback as Part of Obama
Brain Trust,” Oct. 21) I find it frightening that financial markets
believe that any person, whether it be Sen. Obama or Sen. McCain, is going to
have such power over private individuals that we need to worry about who
whispers in their ears. I’d be much happier if the only people whispering
in Sen. Obama’s ears were his wife and daughters.

//////

Sirs,

You report that Pres. George W. Bush is “open to the
idea” of yet another spending package as if it were a surprise (“Fed
chief backs new stimulus before year’s end,” Oct. 21). Pres. Bush’s
consistent failure to veto the enormous number of spending bills both
Republican and Democrat-controlled Congresses have sent him merely confirms
that, like all politicians,  even America’s nominally “conservative”
ones are always willing to spend other people’s money.  I predict that
you’ll be reporting a year from now that our next president is
considering yet another spending spree, no matter who wins the upcoming election.

Andrew P. Morriss
H. Ross & Helen Workman Professor of Law and Business
University of Illinois

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  • dg lesvic

    test

  • LowcountryJoe

    Sorry, that last Roosevelt should have read the IV. You know it's hard to keep track of all those different Roosevelts. And that's no bull, Moose.

  • LowcountryJoe

    Apparently it does matter who is whispering in who's ear.

    But of course you guys don't "do" data.


    In the first linked to image, I'm just curious, why does the top of the illustration simply have Roosevelt III and Truman in second with very high GDP numbers? And then why, when you look at the very bottom of the chart, you see Roosevelt and Truman combining, again, for negative numbers. So, I'm not sure who Roosevelt III was but I'm quite certain that if one were to look at, say, Roosevelt Jr. or Roosevelt Sr. or maybe even Roosevelt III, perhaps the picture would be quite ugly for whoever those guys might have been.


    [/tongue planted firmly in cheek]

  • LowcountryJoe

    Perhaps it is because that so far the stupidity has not been a majority position; but, I think that that has changed over the last two decades.


    Not surprisingly, the period that has seen the most amount of deregulation by any measurable standard (e.g. federal spending, amount of new legislation and amount of total 'laws' at the federal level, pages in the tax code, subsidies, bailout) ~ Channeling muirgeo.

  • Excuse me, I meant: what does GDP growth actually tell us?

  • Tell us which party controlled the congress.

    And what does GDP tell us?


    How about average family income?


    Was war production part of FDR's GDP?

  • muirgeo
  • vidyohs

    We Americans have proven that we can survive natural diasters, man made diasters, wars, and bad leaders; yet, I marvel that we manage to survive our own stupidity.


    Perhaps it is because that so far the stupidity has not been a majority position; but, I think that that has changed over the last two decades.

  • Next month we'll have 20 nations whispering in Bush's ear. I'm sure they'll pass it along to Obama.

  • Crusader

    Don - be careful. Muirgeo will accuse you of being really, really mean.

  • jorod

    One of the great failures of the George W. Bush adminsitration is he could not control spending. In fact, he never saw a spending bill he didn't like. (Until the Democrats came along.)

  • Martin Brock

    Who spends and what they buy is irrelevant. What matters is the marketable taxpayer obligations they create, because we need "investments" yielding "income" to keep afloat the illusion that "capitalism" feeds us in our old age.

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