Why can't they shut up?

Yesterday, not a single administration official opened their mouths, and the markets responded with a near-record climb.

Well, instead of learning their little lesson, Paul O'Neill clumsily tried to "calm troubled investors". And while there are still a few hours of trading left as of this writing, the Dow is taking another beating. So the administration's streak remains unbroken -- every time they talk about the economy, the markets tank.

Of course, it may all be coincidence, as Bush's spin team has been arguing. But regardless, it serves to further cement the perception that this is Bush's economy, and that the ineptness of his economic team is only making matters worse. In politics, perception is often reality.

There's lots of good material in O'Neil's speech for economists like MaxSpeak or Brad DeLong to chew on. I'll leave the analysis up to them. But it is interesting to me that O'Neil seems to be blaming the European labor movement and Japan for the world's economic troubles. And while the US economy teeters on the edge of a double-dip recession, O'Neil is trying to impose solutions on others:

[O'Neil]added that the Bush administration was considering "what else we might do to urge the Prime Minister (Koizumi) and his cabinet to take further action" to stimulate activity in the Japanese economy, still the largest one by far in Asia.

Posted July 25, 2002 12:15 PM | Comments (2)