WASHINGTON - July 10, 2008 - In an interview
with the Washington Times today, former senator Phil Gramm, who is Sen. John
McCain’s (R-Arizona) economic advisor, blamed the state of the economy on “the
conviction of many Americans that economic conditions are the worst in two or
three decades. You’ve heard of mental depression; this is a mental recession,”
said Gramm.
Gramm decried the constant complaining of the American people when it comes to the economy. “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,” he said.
“We’ve never been more dominant; we’ve never had more natural advantages than we have today,” he said. “We have benefited greatly” from the globalization of the economy in the last 30 years.
Despite McCain’s recent claim that we are in a recession, he has previously echoed Gramm’s diagnosis of the economy. In April, McCain said that “a lot of our problems today, as you know, are psychological.”
Ed. Note: Opening your mouth and making this statement in public is the U.S. politician's 21st century equivalent to Marie Antoinette's statement about the starving French who could not buy bread, when she was reputed to have said, "Let them eat cake!" Do you remember the subsequent response of the French people to the excesses of their government? Viva La Revolucion!