It seems people always give credit to or blame the President for the current economic conditions. People are obsessed with the notion that the president controls the economy. If it’s really “the economy, stupid” then why do we never insist that our presidents have some form of economic background? I’d think that if a party ran a competent candidate (someone who can speak, etc) who can say “I have an economics degree from Harvard” … or more importantly, his party can say "he has an economics degree from harvard, whereas their candidate has an English degree from Yale… who do you want making economic decisions for our country and your precious children?
We relate all economic conditions and changes to the president, but come election time, the candidates’ actual economic experience is never even an issue. Seems like the parties should be trying to find the most decorated economists out there to run them for President. A Nobel laureate in Economics would be just dandy. Yes, they may not be well-rounded, may know nothing about global politics or national defense, but that wouldn’t be any different than any of the current candidates/officeholders, and anyway, it’s the economy, stupid!
I’m not a USA’ian, but I would vote for anyone who had experience in a scientific field, that involved sifting through piles of data. Won’t it be nice to have some in charge who could look over their advisor’s information and double check them quickly? Or to say things like, “Nope, sorry, it ain’t gonna work in a million years. NEXT!”. Or do things near the end of their term that’s not going to have any short-term benefits, but have huge positive consquences in the long term?
Oh my. You think people want things that make cool, calm rational sense?
We don’t want sense, we want magic. We want our president to be completely exceptional … and totally average. We want him to be intelligent … but not an egghead. We want him to be an experienced professional … but we also want him to an outsider who will stand up to the corrupt Establishment. We want him to be honest … but we don’t him to tell us things we don’t want to hear. We want him to have courage … except when he does things that might upset us.
In other words, we want him to be a fantasy figure. (Like Presidents Bartlett or Reagan.)
Economists make remarkably poor fantasy figures, which is why they rarely become Presidents, movie stars, or centerfolds.
I can’t figure if this is supposed to be a rant or if you’re looking for opinions or if this is a debate. It’s not a Genaral Question with a factual answer. So, I’m going to close it.
Please feel free to re-open the topic in the Pit, IMHO, or Great Debates.