Okay, the guy is a trained economist, and someone who is said to have his eye on the Treasury Secretary’s job if John McCain is elected. Is this some kind of fancy, sophisticated technical term?
And there’s this:
“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.
Mr. Gramm said the constant drubbing of the media on the economy’s problems is one reason people have lost confidence. Various surveys show that consumer confidence has fallen precipitously this year to the lowest levels in two to three decades, with most analysts attributing that to record high gasoline prices over $4 a gallon and big drops in the value of homes, which are consumers’ biggest assets.
“Misery sells newspapers,” Mr. Gramm said. “Thank God the economy is not as bad as you read in the newspaper every day.”
Actually, the empathy that these comments imply reminds me of the time, back in the 1980s, when Gramm declared that this is the only country in the world where all the poor people are fat.
UPDATE: The McCain campaign has issued the following statement, though I suspect the candidate himself will want to address it later (At the moment, he’s in the middle of a campaign event in Michigan, which is sort of ground-zero of the mental recession.):
“Phil Gramm’s comments are not representative of John McCain’s views. John McCain travels the country every day talking to Americans who are hurting, feeling pain at the pump and worrying about how they’ll pay their mortgage. That’s why he has a realistic plan to deliver immediate relief at the gas pump, grow our economy and put Americans back to work.”
UPDATE2: McCain just held a news conference where he denounced the Gramm comments, saying: “I don’t agree with Senator Gramm. I believe that the person here in Michigan who just lost his job isn’t suffering from a mental recession. I believe the mother here in Michigan and around America who is trying to get enough money to educate their children isn’t whining. America is in great difficulty and 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.”
I asked a two-part follow-up question: What role did Gramm play in the development of McCain’s economic plan, and would he be in consideration for Treasury Secretary or any other economic-policymaking role in a McCain Administration. “I think Senator Gramm would be in serious consideration for Ambassador to Belarus, though I’m not sure the citizens of Minsk would welcome that,” McCain said.
UPDATE3: Gramm stands by his comments.