President Obama’s press conference last night was a disaster. He came out swinging, and ended up as guilty as anyone he’s criticized for “playing politics.” Let me summarize Obama message last night: “I’ll talk to anyone about the economy except libertarians.” Libertarians – or Austrian, free-market economists – might be “sincere” (condescending, wasn’t it?), but Obama thinks our point of view on the economy – how we got into this mess, and how we’ll get out of it – is so patently absurd, it doesn’t even get to be on the table of options.
In the first place, Obama portrayed free-market economists as dogmatic idealogs, unable to realize that a philosophical disagreement about government intervention in the economy needs to be set aside, because the crisis is bad. That’s silly. Free-market economists are against this “stimulus” because we believe it’s only going to make the problem worse. Our concerns are just as practical.
Secondly, Obama basically went so far as to decide that anyone who is an Austrian economist isn’t really an economist. Because he claimed quite plainly that almost all economists agree with the need to “do something.” He’s quite wrong about this: Cato put together a list. That’s a long list.
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I’m glad you watched it- I pouted and turned the tv off because House wasn’t on. I sorta wished I had watched it now… I didn’t give him enough credit to believe he’d even address free market economics. I’ll be sharing the Cato link on Facebook. It’s a good to know that actual economists (not just amateur idealogic thinkers like me) share my frustration.
He didn’t even bother to address free market economists until he needed to not-answer the first question he was asked. And he didn’t refer to “free market economists” specifically. He mentioned “those” in Congress who disagree, philosophically, with the government doing anything at all. (*cough*RonPaul*cough*), and said that while he thinks they’re “sincere,” he’s not even willing to have a conversation with them.