Mitt Romney's "economic plan" isn't really a plan. Romney's play, says Paul Krugman in today's Times, is all about pursuing "the same goals Republicans always pursue — weaker environmental protection, lower taxes on the wealthy. But it offers neither specifics nor any indication why returning to George W. Bush’s policies would cure a slump that began on Mr. Bush’s watch." He really seems to think that, once he's president, the nation's "confidence" will come bounding back.
Of course, something like relief might come bounding back if we just didn't have the Republicans standing in the way of a healthy economy, as they've done for four years.
As it happens, Mr. Romney offered a testable proposition in his Boca remarks: “If it looks like I’m going to win, the markets will be happy. If it looks like the president’s going to win, the markets should not be terribly happy.” How’s that going? Not very well. Over the past month conventional wisdom has shifted from the view that the election could easily go either way to the view that Mr. Romney is very likely to lose; yet markets are up, not down, with major stock indexes hitting their highest levels since the economic downturn began. ...NYT
Krugman gave us a graph the other day at his blog demonstrating just that. From June on, as Romney's numbers began to tank, the financial market numbers rose in the same pattern.
More Romney, less confidence. Less Romney, more confidence.
