National Review Online asked a group of economic experts to assess President-elect Obama's economic team. Senior Researcher Richard Ebeling joined the NRO symposium, Obama Money Talk: The New Administration and the Economy. This is what he had to say:

In spite of the impression in the media, that President-Elect Obama’s economic team reflects an underlying “pro-market” orientation, they in fact are advocates of manipulating markets to generate outcomes more to their interventionist and welfare redistributive liking. The French have long called this “indicative planning”: use the tax system and the regulatory mechanism to induce the private sector to do what politicians and ideological special interests want. That is not the free market. They will manipulate the markets to bring about the “green” and pro-labor union outcomes that will have nothing to do with the outcomes we as consumers would have desired in a more competitive environment.

In addition, they are all on board to design and implement a vast deficit spending package that will end up doing far more harm than any good, by creating politically influenced public works jobs that will only last for as long as the government keeps spending money in particular ways. Also, they seem to be completely oblivious to the simple but vital question: where is the money coming from to fund what will end up being a total $1.5 trillion bailout and stimulus budget buster? An answer would be nice.

Read the full article at National Review Online.