1115.org

I guess we should expect this from the candidate who freely admits to knowing nothing about economics:

Republican presidential candidate John McCain said on Thursday it was important to “talk up” the U.S. dollar and short-term steps were needed to strengthen its value.

McCain, the Arizona senator who has wrapped up his party’s White House nomination, also repeated his praise for what he interpreted as steps by Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke to boost the value of the struggling U.S. currency.

“We have to talk up the dollar, obviously, and I’m glad that Bernanke did the other day, and do (need to) take certain short-term steps to try and strengthen the dollar,” McCain told a town hall-style campaign event in New Hampshire.
[…]
“When the dollar weakens, the cost of a barrel of oil goes up, (and) inflationary pressures increase,” McCain said.

Oh boy. Someone email this post to Team Straight Talk. The Bush administration has been “talking up the dollar” for seven years. McCain didn’t mention what kind of “short-term steps” he favored, but there’s good reason for that. First, he has no idea what he’s talking about. The problems we face due to a weak dollar are structural and took years to build; this isn’t a temporary phase. Second, probably the quickest way to halt the dollar’s slide runs directly counter to McCain dogma. Getting out of Iraq, a war that is draining our treasury with each passing day, would start strengthening the greenback overnight.

And then there’s McCain’s plan to extend and enlarge the Bush tax cuts, ostensibly hatched by actual economists. Even after the vast majority of economists — including Bush loyalists and former members of his administration — have come to the conclusion that tax cuts do not pay for themselves, McCain is promising more of them. In effect, he’s saying that he’ll continue to pump up the budget deficit as if it didn’t matter. But it does, because the closer we get to a balanced budget, the stronger the dollar.

Finally, the price of oil is much more dependent on supply and demand than it is on dollar fluctuations. The dollar hasn’t fallen as fast as oil has risen, especially recently. The only way to reduce the price of oil is to use less of it. And the fake-green McCain isn’t offering a whole lot of credible ideas there either.

Is it possible for St. John McCain to open his mouth without exposing his near total ignorance and wrongheadedness?