Josh Einstein

I got one of those emails today that had more Fwd: headers than actual content, but I read it and I really liked the analogy so I decided to post it.

When I was teaching economics, I would simply draw a wagon on the chalk board with people riding in the wagon and people pulling the wagon and I would ask the students what happens when there is more riding than pulling?  The answer is obvious, the wagon stops.  It is the same with an economic system.  Someone has to pull the wagon.

And this one…

An economics professor at Texas Tech said he had never failed a single student before but had, once, failed an entire class. That class had insisted that socialism worked; and that no one would be poor and no one would be rich – a great equalizer. The professor then said ok, we will have an experiment in this class on socialism. All grades would be averaged and everyone would receive the same grade so no one would fail and no one would receive an A.

After the first test the grades were averaged and everyone got a B. The students who studied hard were upset and the students who studied little were happy.  But, as the second test rolled around, the students who studied little had studied even less and the ones who studied hard decided they wanted a free ride too; so they studied little. The second test average was a D!  No one was happy. When the 3rd test rolled around the average was an F.

The scores never increased as bickering, blame, name calling all resulted in hard feelings and no one would study for the benefit of anyone else.  All failed, to their great surprise, and the professor told them that socialism would also ultimately fail because when the reward is great, the effort to succeed is great; but when government takes all the reward away; no one will try or want to succeed.

This makes me sick. We watched for months as the Obama smear campaign replayed the famous sound bite from John McCain saying “the fundamentals of the economy are strong.” Despite what the news would have you believe, the fundamentals of our economy ARE strong and they’ve been strong all along. There are a few weak sectors that are spilling over into the rest of our economy, but in the majority of industries, it’s business as usual despite some prudent (and probably long overdue) cutbacks on spending.

So now President Obama is saying nearly the EXACT SAME THING as Senator McCain and even his own economic advisor, Christina Romer, sounds like a complete shill trying to explain how President Obama’s version is correct while Senator McCain’s made him “out of touch.” On Meet the Press this morning, it took her almost 10 seconds before the word “inherited” came out of her mouth and despite David Gregory’s repeated attempts to get clarification on the “fundamentals”, all she could say is that we’re just misinterpreting the President’s comments. What else is new.

PRES. BARACK OBAMA:  If we are keeping focused on all the fundamentally sound aspects of our economy, then we’re going to get through this.  And I’m very confident about that.

SEN. JOHN McCAIN (R-AZ):  You know that there’s been tremendous turmoil in our financial markets and Wall Street, and it is–it’s–people are frightened by these events.  Our economy, I think–still, the fundamentals our–of our economy are strong, but these are very, very difficult time.

Anyway, just listening to her talk, with that big smile and word for word script recitation makes me worry. Are all of President Obama’s closest advisors such “yes men” (or in this case “yes women”)?