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Barack Obama ridiculed a John McCain economic adviser Thursday who said the United States has become a “nation of whiners” suffering from a “mental recession,” as McCain distanced himself from the remarks. Phil Gramm, who now is the No. 2 at the Swiss bank UBS, told The Washington Times the U.S. has benefited from globalization but most Americans are misguided by constant reports that the economy is at its worst in 30 years. “You’ve heard of mental depression; this is a mental recession,” Gramm, a former Texas senator, told the newspaper, adding that the presumptive Republican nominee will face an uphill battle fighting those perceptions. “We have sort of become a nation of whiners,” he said. “You just hear this constant whining, complaining about a loss of competitiveness, America in ‘decline’ despite a major export boom that is the primary reason that growth continues in the economy.”
Gramm later told a cable network that he was calling the country’s leaders whiners, not the American people as a whole, but stood by his “mental recession” remark. Obama, speaking about economic security to a women’s group in Fairfax, Va., said Gramm’s comments show the McCain campaign has no remedy for the nation’s economic woes. Minutes later McCain disavowed the Gramm comments, saying, “We are experiencing enormous economic challenges as well as others. Phil Gramm does not speak for me. I speak for me. So I strongly disagree.” Asked if Gramm might be in line for a job as treasury secretary, McCain joked: “I think Senator Gramm would be in serious consideration for ambassador to Belarus, although I am not sure that the citizens of Minsk would welcome that.”
But McCain has touted Gramm’s economic insights as among the nation’s best. “There is no one in America that is more respected on the issue of economics than Senator Phil Gramm,” he said in February.
So which is it Senator, either you respect his opinion or you don’t. Wasn’t it McCain who also said our economic problems were “psychological”?
When is the main stream media going to get on McCain for his hypocrisy, repeated stupid remarks and constantly changing positions?
It’s good to change your mind because of new information. It is something quite different to be a hypocrite.
If he was a Democrat his political career would be over!
Enough is enough!
You have to give the devil his due, he’s somewhat right.
It’s really lucky that this is just a mental recession and not something more serious, especially when our current president is a former college cheerleader who should be just what we need to lift our spirits.
Sometimes he’s the Decider, and other times he’s the Inspirer. I hope he can do something besides the Bronx cheer that he’s been giving us for the last 7+ years.
You know, whenever I hear a politician talk now, all I hear is bla, bla, bla, bla. When the dust settles, you can almost always measure your final choice by the level of disappointment.
There are a lot of good details about exactly how Phil Gramm played his part as one of the key people responsible for the current subprime crisis and about McCain’s uber-stupid choice of Gramm as his economic adviser intended to fix the very crisis he is largely responsible for causing.
Foreclosure Phil — Mother Jones.
Isn’t politics beautiful?
Remember, McCain himself claims that he has little knowledge of economic matters. Imagine if he gets into office with this economic moran as his economic adviser.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RqsH7dkFGTo
Damn.
Wasn’t Phil responsible of the Enron Loophole as well?
Isn’t America in decline?
By every metric that is measured we are far behind the rest of the world. American’s have a right to complain when so much has been taken from them.
Also, try telling your credit card company to “quit whining; it’s all mental”.
Everything’s bigger in Texas… except for the brains…
#6 – ArianeB,
Wasn’t Phil responsible of the Enron Loophole as well?
I believe that gets honorable mention in the MoJo article too, yes.
#7 – julieb,
try telling your credit card company to “quit whining; it’s all mental”.
That’s a great idea!! (ROFL) I’ll also forward my bill to Phil Gramm, perhaps he’d be willing to pay it for me.
The late George Carlin was right. Your country has been pussified.
When I heard that Phil Gramm had said this, I immediately realized that he had not had any economic setbacks and was not capable of identifying / empathizing with those who had. It was more a statement of his state of mind rather than one of the American people’s.
As the repo-man takes your house keys, curse Phil Gramm and the anti-regulation Regan conservatives who created this housing disaster.
The thing is, the economy IS in large part a (mob) psychology phenomenon. Underlying the credit crisis is a loss of faith that your money is secure. That’s why banks stopped lending to each other.
At any one time, there is 10X as much money circulating in the economy because banks “invent” it. It works like this: A bank lends you $100, which you pay to someone. That someone goes and put that in his bank, which now has $100 that it can lend to someone else, which of course it does. This pattern repeats itself to generate about a 10:1 ratio between money in circulation and money issued by the central bank. The problem comes when everyone panics and calls in their loans all at once — the whole thing comes crumbling down because there isn’t enough “real” money to do that.
The only thing that would cause people to do something so fundamentally self-destructive is panic — a human emotion.
>> dg said,
>> The thing is, the economy IS in large part a (mob) psychology phenomenon. Underlying the credit crisis is a loss of faith that your money is secure.
Yes, but…
If you don’t have elected leaders who regulate the banking and financial industry, the greedy looters like Phil Gramm and the neo-cons will always destroy the system, if THEY can be bazillionaires.
Gramm is spot on. What a “recession” is has a very specific definition and our current economy doesn’t match it. We are NOT in a recession except for what is in peoples heads.
It’s interesting to see that a majority here support the factually wrong stance that we are in a recession.
Our country (the US), by the minute, gets more and more people who think that they are entitled.
#7 – Except Obesity
15,
Yes, that bank crash and Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae’s being in trouble are purely due to perception, not reality.
Not.
Wait, so measurable economic breakdowns are all in our head, but fears about having a President with a funny name are legitimate concerns?
“… major export boom…” said Sen. Phil. Huh?
What are we exporting in such quantities besides movies, fast food, arms (and jobs)? The people I know who have lost well paying jobs in the last few years weren’t working in any of those fields. Perhaps they should have been…
“Want cluster bombs with that?”
Can i ask these RICH folks to come down to the lower bunks??
when 40% of the USA is in poverty(<$20k per year), and 60% earn LESS then the estimated(?) poverty LEVEL..(about $34-40K per year)
If you are making LESS then $17 per hour or $9-10 EACH for 2 people…You aint going to be able to PAY YOUR BILLS…
Vote the conservatives out.
It was INCREDIBLY BONEHEADED of Americans to elect leaders who believe government can do no good.
#15 al wrote, “It’s interesting to see that a majority here support the factually wrong stance that we are in a recession.”
While I support your right to express the opinion that we’re not in a recession, you’ve made an interesting claim about the facts. You should probably know that the beginning of a recession can only be identified well after the fact, and the most widely recognized arbiter of business cycles (including recessions) in America is the National Bureau of Economic Research. They take a lot more statistics into account than what you could possibly have at your disposal, and they don’t make their official determination of the start of a new business cycle until 6-18 months after the peak or trough has occurred. So while your opinion that we’re not in a recession is as valid as anyone’s, you clearly overreach when it comes to facts, and since facts were your point of criticism for others here, I can’t say I don’t enjoy the irony just a bit 😉
.
.
#19 wrote “Want cluster bombs with that?”
I wish I’d said that, Uncle Patso 😉 It conjures up an image of a sleazy foreigner yelling into a clown’s head, “Yes, I want cluster bombs, and could I have an extra box of bullets?”
Fuck Phil Gramm and the silver spoon he rode in/out on.
#21
Yeah vote them out because the Democratic BONEHEADED MAJORITY is doing such a swell job. Open your eyes Greggy both parties are having a party up your ass.
#15: I love sarcasm.
Try telling the hundreds of thousands of people who are permanently losing their low-paying service jobs each month that the recession is all in their heads.
It reminds of Barbara Bush.
Almost everyone I’ve talked to says we’re going to move to Houston. … What I’m hearing, which is sort of scary, is they all want to stay in Texas. Everybody is so overwhelmed by the hospitality. And so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway, so this — this is working very well for them.
Out of touch…
This one cracks me up:
http://tinyurl.com/67dvh8
We are a nation of whiners. We have always been a nation of whiners. It’s unAmerican not to be a whiner. I can say that because I’m not running for office. That means I don’t have to be professional lier to get elected.
While we have been blessed with super power status in large part because of the natural resources of our nation and the efforts of previous generations we have been neither reasonible nor prudent in making use of those resources.
Anyone who thinks a credit card company/(lenders in general) is looking for anything besides some way to make you work for them for nothing is insane.
The nation and many individuals have been spending way beyond its/their means and the bills are starting to come due and mom and dad can’t bail us out of the holes we’ve dug for ourselves.
I guess it’s up to us to make what ever adjustments we have to make and liking those adjustments is purely optional.
Being in debt is like getting old. You aren’t going to liket it. The good news is that you can normally cut your spending down to something you can afford while old age is just the prelude to death.
Of course if you don’t make those cuts dept can do a serious number on you as well.
You’ll have fun now.
Gramm’s right. Unemployment is at 5%, which for most of American history would have been considered wonderful. Plus it doesn’t look like the economy is in recession yet despite the best efforts of the government.
The media reports on the economy differently depending on which party is in power.
http://tinyurl.com/64wp87
The Shrinking Value of the Dollar
#28 Unemployment figures in the US are obtain from a sample pool and not a consensus.
#28 wrote, “The media reports on the economy differently depending on which party is in power.”
In a nation of whiners, he who whines loudest can be king. Your scepter awaits.