"Sanction China for Unfair Trade Practices"

Inflammatory, right? Well, Mitt Romney has vowed to make this one of the five executive orders he'll issue on the first day of his presidency. He claims that he'll support free trade policies like no president in history (unless they don't benefit America's big business bosses), but apparently he thinks it's a good idea right now to ostracize China, whose rapidly expanding middle class is creating a huge demand for American exports. Sounds stupid to me.

 And while we're here, let me point out a stupid analogy he made about phones and the economy, in which he claimed that Obama's "payphone strategy" isn't working because he's pushing quarters in the slot (maybe hundreds of billions of dollars of stimulus money injected into the economy is like quarters for Mitt?), but the payphones are no longer connected. Paraphrased: "Well, Mr. Obama, we're living in a smart phone age and payphones don't work anymore."

Actually, Mitt, even though a new BlackBerry may look cooler, payphones do still work. Unfortunately, America can't afford your "smart phone strategy" right now because we're broke as hell, i.e. THE PROBLEM. Looks like it's time to break out the quarters, a-hole. Here's a better analogy: There's a payphone near your house, but you'd rather have a new iPhone 4 because it looks good and everyone will think you're cool. So you save up your money (by using a payphone), and you buy one, only to realize that it was a stupid purchase because now you're out of money and have to pay a lot to use it. Hmm, sounded good on paper, but oh shit, looks like it didn't work in the real world. I guess the only option now is to cling to that outdated free market ideological nonsense iPhone and blame your fiscal woes on the payphone users.

Romeny also seems to hate smart people, parroting the Tea Party's anti-academic rhetoric. Again paraphrased: "I don't surround myself with professors and academics and economists who sit alone behind a desk all day. I have real world experience." Yeah, my dad's owned a pretty successful small business for almost 20 years. Maybe he should replace Ben Bernanke and lead the Fed in making decisions about federal funds rates, repurchasing agreements and money creation. I bet his experience in wholesale electrical supplies has prepared him to make decisions about regulatory institutions like the Asset Backed Commercial Paper Money Market Mutual Fund Liquidity Facility, colloquially known as the ABCPMMMFLF (ain't that a bitch to remember). Sure, it's possible he'd be able to make successful fiscal and monetary policy decisions based solely on his business skills, but I kind of doubt it.

And what the hell?! Mitt Romney claims to have business experience in the "real world" that Obama doesn't have. Oh really? See, I thought Barack Obama came from a poor family, worked his way up the social ladder, to Columbia and then to Harvard, became a very successful public servant and eventually president of the United States. And I thought Mitt Romney's father was an extremely wealthy businessman and influential politician, who was CEO of American Motors and governor of Michigan, and who named his son Mitt after his best friend, J. Willard Marriott, THE FOUNDER OF MARRIOTT HOTELS. Mitt's story of struggle and triumph is inspiring. Not. Stop bullshitting us with your "I'm just like you" story. Because you're not.

To Mitt's credit, he did say that he thinks Obama is a good person and a good American, so that was a nice contrast to ignorant Michele Bachmann and her ilk.

This is going to be a rough year.