Expectations

Right now, I expect that Obama's going to win. There is a feeling that he will be all things to all people; part of that is the abysmal occupant now -- "well, of course he'll be better than Bush" -- and part is the standard assumption that a new president will make all things better. New broom, and so forth. That’s a pretty heavy burden, and every president faces at least the second part. The almost inevitable result is that people are disappointed when, on day X of the new term, the streets are not paved with gold, the air not fresh, your children not properly respectful.

But this new president will have the additional burden of our terribly-performing economy.

I don’t trust professional economists. I don’t think that any professional economist knows what can be done to return this economy to its prior state. I’m not all that confident that they know why the economy works, in any but the macro sense. They know things that can be done at any time (raise taxes, lower taxes, tax asymmetrically, etc); they know what the effect of such things tends to be; they don’t know if doing such things will have the normal effect this time. Part of that is that for all its mathematical background, economics is a science based on people and how they react to conditions. No economist knows this, so when they build an econometric model, they make assumptions that the people will react in what they consider to be reasonable ways. These are bright people, and reasonable assumptions, but that doesn’t mean that the assumptions will work out this time. Later, from the far side of the crevasse, they’ll write learned papers to show that the solution was perfectly clear, and required simply the will to implement it – which will was blocked by the ideological fallacies of the prior administration; if they didn’t work, the learned papers will show that they should have worked; in this case, certain factors inhibited it.

Obama’s a bright guy, but he’s not an economist, so if he’s elected, he’s going to need some bright ones. I’m sure they’re lining up for jobs now. But those bright people are going to have to be smart enough to know what’s possible, politically savvy enough to make the case in terms that are believable to a politicians, and insightful enough to know which of the many tools and magic wants available to them ought to be used. They’re going to have to resist using a sledgehammer, but as the economy deteriorates its going to be more and more likely that that’s the level of effort that will be needed. If you can imagine a delicate tap with a very heavy object, that’s about right. If he can find such people, then he can get it done, and praise will accrue to him (along with papers showing that he could have done it faster, cheaper, more easily if he had only....). If not, we could be screwed for a long time, and his name will be up there with Hoover’s – who, incidentally, was a bright guy.

Why do people run for the Presidency?