Economists Finally Get One Thing Right in 2011: Obama a Failure

• John Ransom

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• Not that we needed any reminding from economists that Obama’s economic plan has sucked wind since inception, but a new survey released by the AP says that a large majority of economists polled rate Obama’s economic performance fair-to-poor.
  So, the folks who told us at the beginning of the year to expect 3 percent GDP growth have bailed on Obama now that he’s screwed up their magical predictions for the year.
  There must be year-end bonuses involved for them.  
  I’m not saying that all economists are Obamanauts, I’m just saying that of the ones polled by the AP, it’s likely none of them saw a stimulus program or a TARP program that they didn’t like.
  In a story in the Washington Post, the AP reports that “Half of the 36 economists who responded to the Dec. 14-20 AP survey rated Obama’s economic policies ‘fair.’ And 13 called them ‘poor.’ Just five of the economists gave the president “good” marks. None rated him as ‘excellent.’”
  I don’t know how many surveys the AP sent out, but I’m guessing that a large number of economists politely voted “not present.”
  That means that 86 percent of economists think Obama’s done little to help the economy.
  Indeed some of the economists think that Obama hasn’t wasted, er, borrowed, er, saved/created- or something- enough of our tax money on programs that don’t work. 
  And I was wondering what an economics degree was worth just the other day.
  Now I know the answer: A lot less than I thought.
  “They’ve generally tried to take the right kinds of measures but have often failed to lead with enough vigor to overcome political obstacles,” William Cheney, chief economist at John Hancock Financial Services told the AP.
  Thank God they have failed. That’s failure I can believe in. Hillary was right. We can’t afford all the Democrats bright ideas. And according to polls and mid-term elections, the chief political failure has been in hoodwinking enough voters to go along with the economists.     
  News flash to Cheney: You’re wrong about the vigor thing, and also wrong about the “right kind of measures” thing.  
  If one thing is true of Obama’s administration it’s that they have generally marched in the wrong direction with a kind of arrogance that should be reserved only for those who are occasionally right about something- anything- economic. 

• This is the monster that was created when Obama got the presidency and a Nobel Prize for frothy, high calorie rhetoric like “We are the ones we have been waiting for,” “The Audacity of Hope,” and other wordy cakes and pastries with no nutritional value.
  If Obama made as many easy economic decisions as he has vacations this year, we’d be seeing decent economic growth. In fact, if we could get Obama to take more vacations and not make ANY decisions, it’s likely real unemployment-U6- wouldn’t be at 16 percent. Despite economists predictions, expect unemployment to climb in the second half of 2012.
  Source: Portal Seven
  
  TARP hasn’t worked out, the home mortgage modification program hasn’t worked out; Frank-Dodd isn’t protecting us from systemic banking failure, rather it’s only systematized systemic banking failure; Obama’s green programs have been called by the Washington Post- yes, the Post- a program designed for political payoffs, not jobs; industry has been under a deluge of regulatory actions that amounts to the rape of the US economy; kleptocrats, who can not keep their hands off what others own, have been put in charge of everything under Obama and called Czars, like it’s a good thing.
  We’ve gotten to the point where a small minority of people can march in the street calling for nationalization of everything, forgiveness of all debts and a sizable group of Americans, including noted economists, think that that is normal.
  We fought a world war and a cold war, for this?
  Most amazing of all is the high marks that the economists give Mitt Romney because he has business experience.
  “Romney’s a technocrat,” economist Allen Sinai told the AP, like the term technocrat is a good thing. “He’s not an ideologue. He has a history in the real world of business.”
  Yep. We heard the same thing in Europe.
  Memo to economists: It’s not business failures that got us into this mess, political failures did.
  Economists, bankers, technocrats and messiahs won’t save us here.
  Only voters and politicians can.