Jon Levine

I found this interesting blog post about who’s advising John McCain on economic matters. It should come as no surprise that it’s a bunch of fat-cat stiffs.  From the article:

Doug Holtz-Eakin source

Holtz-Eakin is a formerly respected academic and government economist who has been reduced to making distortionaryarguments to paper over the massive deficit black hole McCain’s tax cuts would create.

Arthur Laffer source
Laffer is the originator of the Laffer curve, the fringe view that claims government revenue increases when tax rates are lowered. There is zero empirical evidence this is true at current tax rates. McCain has repeatedly said that he believes this foolishness, but Holtz-Eakin has said (also repeatedly) that McCain does not.

Phil Gramm source
Gramm is a lobbyist who was vice president of one of the investment houses most heavily implicated in the mortage industry scandal. As a senator he pushed for the banking deregulation that contributed to the current crisis. See more here.

Kevin Hassett source
Hassett has been widely ridiculed for writing the book Dow 36000: The New Strategy for Profiting from the Coming Rise in the Stock Market in 1999, predicting that the Dow would hit 36,000 within five years, if not sooner.

Donald Luskin source
Luskin has been repeatedly named the Stupidest Man Alive by Brad Delong. See here for an example. I can attest based on my own interaction with him a few years back that in addition to being not the sharpest tack in the box, he is also an extremely unpleasant person.

Nancy Pfotenhauer source
Pfotenhauer is a pure distilled product of Koch Industries, an oil company which funds much of the right wing message machine. See here for details.

Carly Fiorina source
Fiorina was spectacularly fired from her previous job as CEO of HP. According to the Times,

… Republicans say Ms. Fiorina is using the McCain campaign to rebuild her image after her explosive tenure at Hewlett-Packard. They also say it is hard to see why a woman widely criticized for mismanaging one of Silicon Valley’s legendary companies is advising and representing a candidate who acknowledged last year that he did not understand the economy as well as he should.

Regarding Fiorina, Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, the senior associate dean for executive programs at the Yale School of Management, says “What a blind spot this is in the McCain campaign to have elevated her stature and centrality in this way. You couldn’t pick a worse, non-imprisoned C.E.O. to be your standard-bearer.”

It’s an interesting read.  Seems like we’re on the brink in the country and McCain is putting his faith in the people that helped get us here.

Let’s hope that when this guy gets into the voting booth, he thinks McCain is spelled O-B-A-M-A.

There’s a chance that we’ll soon have a President who, admittedly, doesn’t know how to use a computer or the internet and a Vice President who’s been outside of this country exactly once. Now, maybe it’s me, but I’m not OK with that.  

I don’t want this to come out as a rant against small towns in this country, but Sarah Palin was right:  small town people grow our food, work in our factories, and fight our wars.  They don’t run our multi-national corporations, govern our large cities or, if there is any such thing as good karma in this world, have the ability to make decisions that effect billions of people.   I’d rather leave that up to the well-educated, not the barefoot beauty queens.

This woman looks and sounds like a New Jersey soccer mom.  That’s great, I’m not against them.  I am, however, against a New Jersey soccer mom in the number two spot in the country.  Speaking of the way she sounds, I can totally see how badly Saturday Night Live is going to make fun of her.  That nasally-annoying voice and robotic speaking pattern. I can’t wait.  But, I digress.

If the rest of the country can’t see through this sham, I feel sorry for us.  If the McBush/Stalin ticket is elected, we deserve everything we get.

Oh, and by the way:  they keep showing Bristol and her new ‘fiance’ (who I’m sure just JUMPED at the chance to marry her… must have been the shotgun pointed at him) on TV.  Such a good looking, well-mannered young man.  Here’s excerpts from his MySpace profile.  Yeah, good luck with that.