Economics

Capitalism No Longer in "Favor" After 15 Largely Uninterrupted Years of Growth and Job Creation

|


Expect to see a whole lot more like this, from the news pages of your morning paper:

Former senator Phil Gramm, with his aw-shucks Texas drawl, may at first blush have little in common with Carly Fiorina, the telegenic former chief executive of Hewlett-Packard. But they share a bond: Both are leading economic advisers of Sen. John McCain (Ariz.), the presumptive Republican nominee for president, and both have reputations as the kind of aggressive capitalists that may be sliding from favor as the nation's economy edges toward recession.

Democratic opponents are already plotting attacks on two advocates of what Robert Reich, a former Clinton labor secretary, described as "dog eat dog capitalism," an economic philosophy that works well when the economy is on the upswing but may not play so well in a trough.

I shudder to imagine what will happen to capitalism's wobbly reputation when unemployment creeps above 5.0%.

For an actually literate take on McCain's economic team, I'll again recommend the Weekly Standard's Andrew Ferguson.