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First Responders
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
Daniel Gross, columnist for Slate and Newsweek, looks at how John McCain and Barack Obama are responding to this week's financial troubles.
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McCain said the economy was fundamentaly sound yesterday and was on CBS this morning backpedaling on the economy. Guess he must have figured out how to use his computer to view the "great economic progress" as it happens. His cadre of financial lobbyists got this started with banking reform. Burn those safety nets! More deregulation - works great, right?!?
All the blame cannot be laid at Bush and McCain's feet.
When Clinton was President in the mid 90s, the repeal of the Glatt Spiegel Act that prevented banks from gambling, legislation passed in the 30s, removed the deregulation that has snowballed into the avalanche we have now, all these problems with the banks.
We cannot leave people to regulate themselves. We need laws to run banking and to regulate to prevent abuse of power.
Strong then at risk within a few hours?
McCain is so out of touch.
It is terrible he doesn't know how to use a computer.
McCain has no idea what is going on.
Bush and McCain are the same.
Can anyone seriously analyze what McCain says? He has proven he’ll say anything to get elected. He is without ideas, he just says whatever is politically expedient. He only started railing about “change” in Washington a few weeks ago. His top economic advisors are Phil Gramm and Carly Fiorina ! Feel free to cut their names and paste them in to Google.
Yes, why didn't anyone ask him about Carly Fiorina's past!! And why doesn't anyone pick up on his reading from a script even what should be policies he's passionate about. He fumbles, looks down and the script and then makes these feeble attempts as passtionate anger or frustration or agression that just don't make it. It's all so artificial and weird.
For no. 2: I believe the 1930's legislation was Glass-Steigel. (Glatt Spiegel is, perhaps, a kind of kosher German magazine). In any event, I agree that it was probably a mistake to repeal it (even though I was and am a Clinton supporter).
Can you talk about the “Keating Five” please?\\
Reformer?
they have pulled the campaigns off the policies track and onto the low track. They have no policies other than those of the current administration which has no polices and they don't want to touch that. They don't even want the Lipstick Lady to talk to the media on terms other than their own.
McCain says today that we should create a commission on the economy similar to the 9/11 commission. It is irresponsible to come up with “ideas” like this one in the eye of the storm for the sake of providing the illusion that you have solutions to problems that are this massive and historic. It’s like trying to fix your roof in the midst of a hurricane.
If McCain is elected president, his secret service nickname will be CLUELESS.
If Palin becomes vice president, her secret service nickname will be VACUOUS.
McCain and Palin know less than zero about economics.
McCain and Palin are Reformed Mavericks
The fruit of hypocrisy by Joseph Stiglitz [a Nobel prize winning economist]
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/sep/16/economics.wallstreet
Dishonesty in the finance sector dragged us here, and Washington looks ill-equipped to guide us out
All comments (84)
Joseph Stiglitz The Guardian, Tuesday September 16 2008 Article history
If anyone is still looking for a convincing reason to vote for Obama, this should be it. For McCain to first assure us that the fundamentals are fine and then complain about "greed" on Wall Street insults our intelligence, when he takes advice from Phil Gramm who helped engineer the repeal of Glass-Stiegel, thus blurring the line between a regular bank and an investment bank. Yes, Bill Clinton signed the bill and I criticize him for it but the bill had Gramm's fingerprints all over it. Then McCain praised Alan Greenspan, the great enabler of all of the risky behavior by these investment banks. If banks don't want to be regulated then they should not come to the taxpayers with their hands out when they crash themselves with bad investments that they were too "greedy" to regulate themselves.
BTW, investment banks are SUPPOSED to be greedy. Remember Michael Douglas's Gekko from "Wall Street?'' "Greed is good!" It is ridiculous for McCain to bemoan greedy behavior on Wall Street. They are doing what comes naturally. THEY NEED OVERSIGHT! Duhhh!
mc,
the reason Gekko was such a memorable character was that he was novel. Bankers were never traditionally supposed to wear their greed on their sleeve - most of them had been born into money and lacked that "hunger." And I suspect that for most of this nation's history, greed was less of a motivator for the esteemed bankers than the attempt to keep "certain people" (including certain white folk) away from power.
mc,
but yeah, otherwise I agree with you on regulation.
Robert,
Glatt-Spiegel sounds like a kosher deli to me. I think I hear a pastrami calling...
...and don't forget that the Maverick, as a member of Keating 5, was deeply involved in the Savings and Loan crisis and ensuing ethics scandal of the late '80s-early '90s.
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