Barackalypse Now! - Economics is not his strong suit either

I don't mean to pick on Austan, but as an economic adviser he has failed to pass along things every freshman would learn in an introduction to economics class.  To wit:

Passions fly on immigration, but I don't know anyone who benefits when . . . an employer undercuts American wages by hiring illegal workers.

Oh, I can think of a few.  How about the employer, the illegal worker, and every person who buys goods or services from the employer? 

For part of what has been lost these past eight years can't just be measured by . . . bigger trade deficits.

What is this guy, a mercantilist?  Trade deficits measure gains - they grow when we trade worthless pieces of paper for real goods produced abroad and those producers don't make us take those same pieces of paper back in exchange for some of our goods.

[McCain] said that the fundamentals of the economy are strong. And when one of his chief advisors -- the man who wrote his economic plan -- was talking about the anxiety Americans are feeling, he said that we were just suffering from a "mental recession," and that we've become, and I quote, "a nation of whiners."

I guess positive real GDP in 5 of the last 6 quarters isn't as good as if our economy had grown in all 6, and while unemployment below 6% would be the envy of Europe, it has been better.  However, in light of his failure to grasp some pretty basic economics, I think Obama may be the one suffering from a "mental recession".