Turns out, not everyone has heard about Obama economic advisor Christina Romer’s more-or-less farewell speech at the National Press Club.

Basically, she said she has no freaking clue how things work. That, of course, is our take away. She put it differently—but not by much.

What is the best way to fix the economy? “The only sure-fire ways for policymakers to substantially increase aggregate demand in the short run are for the government to spend more and tax less”

So when you are in a financial crisis, the solution is to spend more money than you earn? What about increasing consumer recovery power by taxing less, and offsetting the loss of revenue by curtailing spending? Evidently that approach, she said, is “fiscally irresponsible.”

Wait, there are more gems. Such as her admission that despite having all the tools they need to fix the economy, the Obama administration consistently underestimated the severity of the situation. Even when touting the bailout as a way to stop rising unemployment, they “failed to anticipate just how violent the recession would be.”

Nevertheless, she thinks she did a great job in her role, despite being wrong about nearly all of it. But don’t blame her: “To this day, economists don’t fully understand why firms cut production as much as they did or why they cut labor so much more than they normally would…almost all analysts were surprised by the violent reaction.” Almost all, but not quite all. In fact, there were many analysts who understand exactly what was happening, and loudly cried against what the administration was doing. To put it another way, Ms. Romer, liberals think they understand everything, right? So when it becomes apparent that they do not, well, no one could understand the screw up…not even the ones who understood it perfectly.

Despite her concessions that “the turnaround has been insufficient,” you should not think she accepts any blame for this, or incredibly, you should not conclude that this rampant failure is an indication of a…well…a failure. In fact, she continues to tow the party line that everything is going to work out beautifully for everyone.

And that party line, by the way, is the progressive party. Another chilling sign is that she mentions a progressive code word—pragmatic or pragmatism—four times in seven paragraphs. You are supposed to think it means “practical,” but in Progressive liberal terms, it means “It benefits our cause, even if it proves painful to the average person.” Lots of terrible things were done in the name of pragmatism.

Be glad this is an ersatz farewell speech. The United States economy cannot accept much more of Ms. Romer’s type of pragmatism.

The Czar of Muscovy

Божію Поспѣшествующею Милостію Мы, Дима Грозный Императоръ и Самодержецъ Всероссiйскiй, цѣсарь Московскiй. The Czar was born in the steppes of Russia in 1267, and was cheated out of total control of all Russia upon the death of Boris Mikhailovich, who replaced Alexander Yaroslav Nevsky in 1263. However, in 1283, our Czar was passed over due to a clerical error and the rule of all Russia went to his second cousin Daniil (Даниил Александрович), whom Czar still resents. As a half-hearted apology, the Czar was awarded control over Muscovy, inconveniently located 5,000 miles away just outside Chicago. He now spends his time seething about this and writing about other stuff that bothers him.