Phil Gramm Thinks You’re Imagining Having No Money

Phil Gramm, John McCain’s senior economic advisor and architect of countless diastrous economic policies, told the Washington Post today that you are imagining being unemployed and broke. Oh, and he is also being sent to Belarus.

Here is what he told the Washington Times today:

“You’ve heard of mental depression; this is a mental recession,” he said, noting that growth has held up at about 1 percent despite all the publicity over losing jobs to India, China, illegal immigration, housing and credit problems and record oil prices. “We may have a recession; we haven’t had one yet.”

“We have sort of become a nation of whiners,” he said. “You just hear this constant whining, complaining about a loss of competitiveness, America in decline” despite a major export boom that is the primary reason that growth continues in the economy, he said.

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Yes that 1% growth might have something to do with billions of dollars being funnelled into the friends of Bush & Cheney League For Continual War and Richness. Or BCLFCWR. Which I made up and doesnt mean anything but looks kind of Roman.

Meanwhile … in a press conference earlier today John McCain told Time Magazine that Phil Gramm was being sent to Belarus .. “although even they might not want him”. Ha Ha.

He is such a card that JMC. A war hero of course and we deeply respect him for his service. But a funny guy too. And a war hero who earned his stripes for President by being shot down several times.

What McCain is avoiding is answering the actual question put to him by Time which essentially boils down to: You know nothing about the economy. Phil Gramm is your go to economic advisor. And now you are pretending that all your economic policy ideas are your own?

What has been even more troubling to anyone who has paid attention to Phil Gramm’s economic record is that his policies have been disastrous for America. The Huffington Post, Mother Jones and Randi Rhodes, and others have been following this narrative for quite some time now, but it essentially includes these damning resume builders: 

Gramm has extensive ties to Enron

Gramm has been a lobbyist for international banking and subprime mortgage giant UBS

Gramm played a key role in the subprime mortgage meltdown which has cost Americans hundreds of billions of dollars

Gramm is driving John McCains economic bus

Let’s see how our friends in the media deal with the latest John McCain debacle. And let us wonder if the response would have been the same if the top economic advisor for Barak Obama had said the same thing.

jxx