Obama’s "Jobs and Competitiveness Council" - His Most Epic Fail To Date?

The fact that Barack Obama is making illegal appointments to out-of control, unaccountable, extralegal federal agencies is bad enough.  But what's worse is that his track record of personnel selection to committees, boards, and agencies of all types has been universally brutal.  Let's forget Sonia Sotomeyer for a moment, and even (spit, spit) Eric Holder.  Instead, let's see how the companies that populate his much-heralded "Jobs and Competitiveness Council" are faring.

It ain't pretty, folks:

When the council’s members were announced February 23, among the concerns raised was that the members would use their status to the advantage of their companies. In fact, what’s happened since then is that the 13 publicly traded companies whose executives were appointed to the council, taken together, have declined in value by about 7% through year-end, worse than the decline of about 4% in the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index over the same period.

Eastman Kodak’s stock has lost more than 80% of its value since President Obama named its chairman and CEO, Antonio Perez, to the Council on Jobs and Competitiveness. Citigroup is down 44% since Mr. Obama named its chairman, Richard Parsons, to the Council on Jobs and Competitiveness. The UBS AG shares traded on the New York Stock Exchange are down 40% since Mr. Obama named Robert Wolf, the chairman of UBS Group Americas and the president of UBS Investment Bank, to the Council on Jobs and Competitiveness.

If these council members haven’t produced much by way of competitiveness, at least as measured by stock price, they haven’t produced much in the way of jobs, either. In April 2011, Kodak announced 48 layoffs in Durham, North Carolina. In August 2011, UBS announced 3,500 layoffs. In December 2011, Citigroup announced 4,500 layoffs.

And Kodak is about to file for Chapter 11 protection.  How many jobs will be lost in a bankruptcy?  Or what if the best move for Kodak is to simply liquidate?  Will Obama step in with a bailout, rather than see a member of his "competitiveness" council  auction off the bones of a once-great company?

Foursome of failure...

But that's not the point.  The real issue here is the president's utter and complete lack of judgement skills, leading to poor appointees across the board. Which, I suppose, is not surprising, given that Obama himself is a man with no real qualifications for any job he's held, but yet has been pushed ahead of the pack -  primarily by others who see him as the perfect vehicle to advance their radical agendas.  Given his own "success" without any real bona fides, what basis in rationality does he have when selecting other individuals for key posts and positions?

And thus you get a "Jobs and Competitiveness Council" that is actually under-performing the rest of the economy at large.  And you get Supreme Court justices picked by their gender.  And Attorney Generals picked based on their skin color.  And all sorts of other posts filled by people who Obama selected because someone else told him they were good enough for the job.

See the results?  They are all around you...