Wednesday, September 1, 2010

Economic Advisers Clueless

For the past 20 months Dr. Christina Romer has been chair of the President's Council of Economic Advisers. Dr. Romer is now leaving the Council to return to her faculty post at U.C., Berkeley. She gave what she termed a "valedictory" speech to the National Press Club.

Dana Milbank, who writes for the Washington Post, has a bleak article concerning her talk. Milbank summarizes Romer's content as follows:
She had no idea how bad the economic collapse would be. She still doesn't understand exactly why it was so bad. The response to the collapse was inadequate. And she doesn't have much of an idea about how to fix things.
If this is the quality of advice our President is getting, no wonder it feels like we're in a double-dip recession. And if Milbank summarizes Romer's talk accurately, she should be ashamed to return to Berkeley, and Berkeley should be reluctant to let her.