John McCain certainly seems to be clueless when it comes to picking economic advisors… almost as clueless as he is about the economy in general. Phil Gramm not only was the primary player responsible for banking/mortgage deregulation and making it easier for investment banks to hide their liabilities, but was a co-author of the Enron loophole legislation.
Carly on the other hand, while being a bad choice because of the common perception of her being a horrible CEO, actually withstands closer scrutiny fairly well, at least when using daveydoug’s standards. The problem is, I’m not sure where he gets his numbers from. According to my records, Hewlett-Packard stock (HPQ) during the Fiorina era tracked the Nasdaq Computer sector index almost perfectly. Further, the major decrease in stock price occurred before the Compaq merger which is the subject of the most common criticism heaped upon her. Just about every tech company suffered dramatic losses in stock price in 2000 including other major companies like Intel and Microsoft. This was not the fault of the people running the companies, but rather rampant speculative investing where people were buying stocks with a Price:Earnings ratio well over 100.
Even at that, the numbers are wrong. The highest the stock got was around $136 before the 2:1 stock split of 10/30/2000 and the lowest it got was $10.75, or adjusted to pre-split numbers, $21.50, the week of 7/22/2002. Keep in mind that H-P is a dividend paying stock and the dividend income during this period is not accounted for in these numbers despite the stock price keeping up with H-P’s peers.
Did she do a stellar job at H-P? No, especially if you were one of the people terminated from a company known for retaining employees. Was she competent? I think so. Is her association with the McCain campaign a compelling reason to vote for McCain? No way. The faux pas that McCain committed with Fiorina had to do with the public perception of her. He might as well have put Michael Jackson in charge of a commission to attack child porn, after all, Jackson was never convicted of anything… right? Public perception, right or wrong however, is not on Jackson’s nor Fiorina’s side.
On the other hand, if we use Palin’s logic that she has foreign affairs expertise because she could see Russia from her home state of Alaska, then simply owning H-P stock might qualify one as an economic expert.
– Jeffersonish