this one quote captures the core of the political and public policy problem for this self-regarding jackass:
“The president’s supreme confidence in his intellectual abilities... “
this president is a classic illustration of the Dunning-Krueger effect: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning–Kruger_effect
Obama isn’t smart enough to recognize how little he actually knows about either politics or policy. He chose his advisors primarily based on ivy league academic pedigree, regardless of their history of advocating disastrous policies (Summers, Romer etc)
Neither Obama or any of his clueless advisors apparently read the Reinhardt and Rogoff book. http://www.amazon.com/This-Time-Different-Centuries-Financial/dp/product-description/0691142165
If they had they would have known that the history of economic recovery after a housing crash is many years of slow growth.
Instead, Obama and his advisors bet on a quick recovery, devised a “stimulus” plan and health care plan based on paying off democrat interest groups and burnishing Zeros “historic legacy”.
Even now, in political trouble, the president that “historian” Michael Beschloss imagines is the “most intelligent to every occupy the white house” goes back to old style liberal, populist appeals, even as they drive down business confidence and make the economy worse.
Total fail ! My tagline stays until the 2012 election.
I would love to know why anyone considers Obama to be intelligent. I just don’t see it.
Interesting analysis.
Their book is available in pdf form (it might be condensed but is still 126 pages.
http://www.nber.org/~wbuiter/cr1.pdf
Thanks for the Dunning-Kruger info. It correlates with my studies of IQ.
Excerpt: “A Framework of Intelligence
If a person has a low verbal epistemic intelligence he is not able to think realistically about his own thoughts (which is a flow of visual/spatial images). In addition to that the quality of his thoughts is also low. He may know how to react (what to say, how to say it, what to do- which is analytic intelligence) to his environment, but the justification he has is completely self-centered and selfish. Ethical thinking is complex thinking. A person with a low verbal epistemic intelligence can not think ethically. That causes most (severe) criminals to be therapy resistant. They just do not understand what the therapist says, although they may know what behaviour is expected from them. (Of course an antisocial person is not just antisocial due to his poor epistemic intelligence. Temperament is also important, or being a thrill seeker.) (On average:) An antisocial (which has a low epistemic IQ) with a lower analytic IQ will have a greater change of being caught. If he has a higher analytic IQ, he will get more of what he likes and he has more to loose. (They may become criminal when it is an anarchy.) They both have equal difficulty with understanding their own emotions and thoughts and those of others. They have equal difficulty with controlling their emotions and refraining from impulses. A person with a higher analytic IQ will try to ‘get even’ nonviolently.”
http://home.hccnet.nl/robert.kamp/AFrameworkOfIntelligence.htm
He chose his advisors primarily based on ivy league academic pedigree, regardless of their history of advocating disastrous policies....
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How I wish you were right, Rev. Wright. Actually, Obama chose the advisors that Soros told him to choose. And the primary criterion for choosing them was precisely because they would orchestrate disastrous policies that are guaranteed to bring down our culture.