"Why does anyone believe that success in business qualified someone to make economic policy?"
Paul Krugman's response:
...Running a business is nothing at all like making macro policy. The key point about macroeconomics is the pervasiveness of feedback loops due to the fact that workers are also consumers. No business sells a large fraction of its output to its own workers; even very small countries sell around two-thirds of their output to themselves, because that much is non-tradable services.
This makes a huge difference. A businessman can slash his workforce in half, produce about the same as before, and be considered a big success; an economy that does the same plunges into depression, and ends up not being able to sell its goods. Nothing in business experience prepares one for the paradox of thrift, or even the inflationary impact of increases in the money supply (which is real when the economy isn’t in a liquidity trap.) ...Paul Krugman
I suppose the closest we've come to having a businessman as president over the past 30 (and many more!) years is George W. Bush, another son-of with little regard for collateral damage. The closest we've come to a second Great Depression during the same period (and much longer) began during the final years of his administration. Gee, must be just a coincidence. Herbert Hoover, Republican president at the start of (and for several years of) the Great Depression, had a business background before he went into government.
But it isn't fair to put him in the same paragraph with Bush 2 -- he was a decent chap. Far better to see that son-of -- Mitt Romney -- standing right next to little George.
Romney? Fire him! Before he gets any closer!
