I will grant that Ron Paul is both intelligent and wise. And yes, it is true, that he is the most effective champion of human liberty in public life and seems to know more about the U.S. Constitution than any other elected official. He does seem to be personally kind and is even patient with the most obnoxious media figures. And it’s clear from his voting record that he is a man of principle and integrity.

Still, I wouldn’t hire Ron Paul…

… to fix my car. He could be a backyard automotive tinkerer for all I know. But there is no public evidence to that effect. And I sure wouldn’t hire him to do eye surgery.

He’s not that kind of doctor.

Nor would I hire him to structure a leveraged buyout or manage a hostile corporate takeover. He’s not experienced in those things. In fact, for something like that, or to run a private equity firm that does corporate turnarounds, I actually might hire Mitt Romney. It seems he has both experience and demonstrable success in that area.

But I certainly wouldn’t hire Romney to be president.

Especially now.

With the global doomsday debt clock ticking down, the dollar’s world reserve currency status unwinding, and the American dream clearly beginning to fade, we desperately need someone knowledgeable about the economic principles and monetary policies that have gotten us into this mess.

Someone who knows how to get us out.

And that wouldn’t include Mitt Romney.

With all the demands of amassing his substantial personal fortune, Mitt has clearly been too busy to spend any time learning about the Federal Reserve and its role in our perpetual sequence of bubbles and busts, or studying Hayek to find out why state central economic planning must fail, or learning about money and credit from Mises.

It is unfortunate that people tend to confuse some of these financial and economic matters, imagining skills in one to be interchangeable with knowledge about the other. But they are not the same thing.