The economics of personality? The concept defies logic not to mention the laws of finance and accounting, but according to Newsweek's Eleanor Clift it wasn't the combination of President Ronald Reagan's attack on inflation and his low tax rates on individuals and businesses - but his personality that rescued the economy from the malaise of the early 1980s.
On the "The McLaughlin Group" March 7, Clift declared that Reaganomics was a failure, at least initially.
"There's some revisionist thinking going here," Clift said. "Reaganomics did not work, certainly not the first two years. When the midterm elections were held during Reagan's tenure, unemployment was at 10.8 percent."
So what did turn the economy around? According to Clift, it was Reagan's personality that led the economy out of the doldrums. And that's what Obama has lacked she said, despite his hope and change mantra.
"Now, I will grant that with the force of his personality and his - the conviction and the confidence that he projected, he kept Americans believing in him," Clift said. "That's where, I think, President Obama has failed."
However, she advised that we should rest assured - all the policy initiatives Obama has put into play will save the United States.
"This president inherited an economic situation far worse than what Reagan had because this was a meltdown of the financial system and he has brought the economy back from the brink," Clift said. "The stimulus bill and the other programs, health care, ushering a new green economy - they've been interpreted by his critics as all these individual government takeovers. He has failed in projecting a narrative of what - how he's trying to rebuild this country."
