A few of us have been discussing Bush and his all-star CEO cabinet. One of the more conservative members of the discussion pointed out that the talent is really third or forth string by most reckonings. He noted that none of the team had experience with competitive entrepreneurial companies - they were all from industries where gaming regulations by lobbying and politics was the most important asset.
This seemed to be a familiar argument and a search through the New Yorker pile turned up an essay by James Surowiecki. It isn't available on the New Yorker site, but a bit of searching locates the text
http://www.commondreams.org/views02/0830-08.htm
The last paragraph gets at the heart of the matter and goes a long way to explaining the incredibly disjoint economic policy from the current White House:
"Mind you, there's nothing inherently corrupt here. Lobbying, fixing, finagling: it's just business, of a kind. The point is that such ways of doing business have very little to do with free-market capitalism. They have more in common with crony capitalism, in which whom you know is more important than what you do and how you do it. That's the world Bush's key policymakers come out of: they've made their careers by circumventing the free market. Why expect them suddenly to embrace it?"
6:58:02 AM 
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