you know why I'm free to be on your radio show -- nobody in Washington wants to touch me. Ryssdal: That's exactly right. Freakonomics.com is the website. See you in a couple weeks. Pages You mean starting wars on foreign soil and running up the national debt -- neither of those affects our economy all that much? How about appointing the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve or even the Secretary of the Treasury? Those guys don't have that much to do with our economy, do they? Nope, though their duties include setting interest rates, controlling (or not controlling) inflation, printing money, selling bonds, bailing out banks and corporations, bailing out foreign governments, ruining the credit rating of the U.S. etc., etc., etc., and in the case of the Secretary of the Treasury being "responsible for formulating and recommending domestic and international financial, economic, and tax policy, participating in the formulation of broad fiscal policies that have general significance for the economy, and managing the public debt" -- not even all of that gives the President all that much say in the economy. He's just a guy doing some unimportant administrative stuff. Nevermind whom he appoints to the Fed or his cabinet and nevermind the foreign entanglements and endless spending; it's all obsolete when it comes to the market. @andy_colver: You should really consider what he says before trying to ride an assumption the length of your post. If you really think that when a President appoints a member