Deer in Headlights
| Tue Sep. 16, 2008 2:15 PM PDT
DEER IN HEADLIGHTS....This is pretty laughable:
At a rally [in Tampa], Mr. McCain vowed to take aim at what he called the "unbridled corruption and greed that caused the crisis on Wall Street."
Mr. McCain — who has said for months that he believes that the fundamentals of the economy are strong — has used the word "crisis" a lot on the last day to describe the financial situation. He did so in a series of television interviews Tuesday morning, where he called for the creation of a commission to study the problem, along the lines of the commission that investigated the Sept. 11 attacks.
McCain has been running ads for weeks saying that he'll "reform Wall Street and battle Big Oil" — claims that usually prompt me to burst out laughing when they pop up on my TV. If there's a person in the entire country less likely than John McCain to reform Wall Street or battle Big Oil, I'm not sure who it is.
Of course, it would be a lot easier for Democrats to scoff at McCain if they hadn't mostly supported all the same financial deregulation that he did. I have my doubts that repealing Glass-Steagall contributed much to our current problems, but in any case the repeal was supported by Robert Rubin and Larry Summer and signed into law by Bill Clinton. Ditto for the Commodity Futures Modernization Act a year later. What's more, Democrats were mostly pretty happy about the rapid growth of subprime loans to low-income house buyers during the boom years, and a bunch of them supported the 2005 bankruptcy bill too. Hell, last year Senate Democrats couldn't even bring to a vote the biggest no-brainer of all time: a bill to close the carried interest loophole that allows billionaire hedge fund owners to avoid paying income tax at normal rates.
It's true that Barack Obama has some good ideas about re-regulation of Wall Street, and it's noteworthy that he's had these ideas for a while. McCain, conversely, is like a deer in headlights: he has no clue what's going on, so all he can do is keep repeating the word "crisis" like a windup doll and then call for a commission to dig up some answers for him. Not exactly inspiring leadership.
Still, Obama's job would be a lot easier if Democrats had spent the past eight years acting like Democrats. Think they'll learn a lesson from this?
Continues Below
Continued From Above
Comments
McCain has been running ads for weeks saying that he'll "reform Wall Street and battle Big Oil" ? claims that usually prompt me to burst out laughing when they pop up on my TV.
Oh well, I guess we can put to bed any BS about how McCain is acting, thinking person, instead a retiree headed for the oval office rocking chair, who, just like Bush, is planning on letting the corporate mob run his office.
Like I said, Palin wasn't picked by McCain but by those that run the Bushie office same as they run McCain's campaign. It was Palin's ANWR stance and THAT was all it was.
McCain has been running ads for weeks saying that he'll "reform Wall Street and battle Big Oil" ? claims that usually prompt me to burst out laughing when they pop up on my TV.
Oh well, I guess we can put to bed any BS about how McCain is acting, thinking person, instead a retiree headed for the oval office rocking chair, who, just like Bush, is planning on letting the corporate mob run his office.
Like I said, Palin wasn't picked by McCain but by those that run the Bushie office same as they run McCain's campaign. It was Palin's ANWR stance and THAT was all it was.
"If there's a person in the entire country less likely than John McCain to reform Wall Street or battle Big Oil, I'm not sure who it is."
I'll answer that one: Phil Graham, the man who would be McCain's Secretary of the Treasury.
Any other questions?
Kevin Drum: it would be a lot easier for Democrats to scoff at McCain if they hadn't mostly supported all the same financial deregulation that he did. ... the repeal was supported by Robert Rubin and Larry Summer and signed into law by Bill Clinton. Ditto for the Commodity Futures Modernization Act ...
Rubin, Summers and Clinton, weren't they also some of the key Democrats promoting "free trade"? Maybe it's time to re-examine that canard too.
BTW, in an earlier thread you mentioned Dean Baker. He's worth reading more of:
He predicted the current economic problems, and doesn't even bother to toot his horn as he believes it was predicting the obvious.
The best thing about Baker is that he just uses mainstream economic arguments - kind of like economic jujitsu. Nothing fancy, heterodox or philosophical, just basic supply, demand and statistics.
My issue is as usual with the media; Obama does have ideas and he outlined them in a speech today in Colorado. What is the media covering..his response to McCain's committee idea. So the only idea I heard about on the news today came from John McCain, not the bulk of his speech on policy. Meh.
I agree Kevin and thank you for pointing out that the Democrats really are simply the lesser of two evils. Ralph Nader and Cynthia McKinney are the only presidential candidates pushing real progressive ideas. However, we must take baby steps and get people in office who are at least marginally better than the fascist corporatist plutocrats we have now!
Submitted by low-tech cyclist (not verified) on Tue Sep. 16, 2008 2:51 PM PDT.
Obama's job would be a lot easier if Democrats had spent the past eight years acting like Democrats. Think they'll learn a lesson from this?
No.
This has been another installment of Simple Answers to Simple Questions.
Submitted by Nicholas Beaudrot (not verified) on Tue Sep. 16, 2008 2:53 PM PDT.
"If there's a person in the entire country less likely than John McCain to reform Wall Street or battle Big Oil, I'm not sure who it is."
I'll bite: George W. Bush.
Submitted by Robert Waldmann (not verified) on Tue Sep. 16, 2008 3:03 PM PDT.
Like you, I don't think that the repeal of Glass-Steagal contributed much to the current crisis. In fact, I think it clearly contributed a loss less than nothing.
Glass-Steagal separated commercial banks and investment banks. After repeal many merged. The current crisis has involved two stand alone investment banks. The free market's response so far is that Marryle Lynch and Band of America are merging. That would have been illegal before the repeal of Glass-Steagal and it is what they (and all known observers) think needs to be done right now.
More generally, the crisis has little to do with commercial banks expanding into risky areas and a lot to do with non depository institutions expanding into mortgage lending via mortgage bonds.
Now there were failures of reform. In retrospect it seems clear that investment banks should have been regulated more tightly especially given the fact that the FED is saving them just like commercial banks. However, Clinton could only say yes or no to the bill the Republicans (lead by Phil Graham) sent him. Given the options, yes was the better answer.
Now bankruptcy reform is another matter. A large part of the problem in the US is that banks and non-banks were very eager to loan to people who could never fully pay back the loans. Making the bankruptcy code more favorable to creditors could only make them more eager. The defense of bankruptcy reform was that it would make it easier for Americans with poor credit ratings to get loans. It now looks as if it was already much to easy so the reform was a terrible idea totally aside from the fact that it, in effect, changed contracts after they were signed (bad) in a way that hurt people in trouble (worse).
The Democratic party sold its soul to the devil for campaign contributions. Now Barack Obama has to win it back (ever seen or read "The Devil and Daniel Webster" ?).
Submitted by tpx (not verified) on Tue Sep. 16, 2008 3:13 PM PDT.
I have my doubts that repealing Glass-Steagall contributed much to our current problems
From Today's Mother Jones:
"Decisively, the Act forced institutions within the banking community to pick a side. You want to deal with the population at large, take their deposits, give them a safe place for their savings, and make reasonable loans for which you are as responsible as the borrowers? Terrific. As a commercial bank in 1933, the newly established Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) backed your depositors and the federal government regulated you."
Alternately, as an investment bank at the time you could raise capital through speculative investors at home or overseas. But you wouldn't get federal backing, and you couldn't use the citizenry's capital to fund your trading activities."
That simple Glass-Steagall separation not only kept consumer and speculative capital from intertwining within the same institution, it made it possible to understand the activities of all financial organizations. Transparency was not perfect, but it was more easily accomplished."
The political whoring for campaign cash has infected both sides of the aisle. Until we fix the way campaigns are funded, this will not change.
As long as "we the people" are too busy buying big screen TV's and watching American Idol to pay attention to the reality that corporations own our entire system of government then we get what we deserve.
Submitted by tpx (not verified) on Tue Sep. 16, 2008 4:29 PM PDT.
Nomi Prins has an article in today's MoJo partly explaining why Glass-Steagall was important.
I don't understand how you can say that you aren't sure if Glass-Steagall contributed to the problem and then say that Democrats don't seem too credible on the issue because some supported various measures that the Republicans supported. The net seems to be cast too widely here. I want to know how a specific deregulatory bill affected the markets and if this is a good or bad thing. Nobody seems to have a perfect answer to this yet, but one party seems far more willing than the other party to want to investigate the problem and enact some changes to the system. I can see how you'd doubt the party's sincerity to the cause, but I don't think there's any reason to group them with the Republicans. At the very least, the problem looks to be so severe that something will be done.
The best thing about Baker is that he just uses mainstream economic arguments - kind of like economic jujitsu. Nothing fancy, heterodox or philosophical, just basic supply, demand and statistics.
I agree. But remember, Baker is a proponent of free trade, just not the free trade that gives professional workers an advantage over other workers. I like him because he seems to combine the progressive spirit without all of the anti-market garbage that comes from some quarters.
Submitted by charlotte (not verified) on Tue Sep. 16, 2008 5:06 PM PDT.
At a rally [in Tampa], Mr. McCain vowed to take aim at what he called the "unbridled corruption and greed that caused the crisis on Wall Street."
Yeah, he said something similar on TV this morning. I laughed so hard, I almost fell out of my bed!
McCain has been running ads for weeks saying that he'll "reform Wall Street and battle Big Oil" claims that usually prompt me to burst out laughing when they pop up on my TV.
Oh well, I guess we can put to bed any BS about how McCain is acting, thinking person, instead a retiree headed for the oval office rocking chair, who, just like Bush, is planning on letting the corporate mob run his office.
Like I said, Palin wasn't picked by McCain but by those that run the Bushie office same as they run McCain's campaign. It was Palin's ANWR stance and THAT was all it was.
Perhaps I'm confused about what it is that members of Congress do, but I was under the impression that, unlike the rest of us, if Barack Obama has a "good idea about re-regulation of Wall Street" he is in a position to implement that idea by proposing legislation.
To me the fact that he's "had these ideas for a while" is noteworthy only because it implies that he does not see his job in the Senate as involving anything substantive but as merely being a springboard for his presidential ambitions. In other words, he does not seem to connect musing about something with the idea that he personally ought to try to pass legislation to solve a particular problem.
Kevin, I think you give Obama too much credit for all this wonderful, deeply intellectual musing he does. You seem to be according his musing about nearly the same weight as solving those problems. He has better ideas, he's smarter, he makes better speeches. His intentions are better, he is more noble than other men. Maybe so. Maybe not. But what of it?
This is the same complaint I have with the big deal he made about being "first" to speak out against invading Iraq. He may have been first to talk about it but he still hasn't gotten around to actually doing anything about it, has he?
Submitted by Independent Perspective (not verified) on Tue Sep. 16, 2008 6:22 PM PDT.
Mitch Guthman has a GREAT idea, will Obama but his money where his mouth is.
Or is it just another FISA Redux. Talk but NO walk?
Perhaps I'm confused about what it is that members of Congress do, but I was under the impression that, unlike the rest of us, if Barack Obama has a "good idea about re-regulation of Wall Street" he is in a position to implement that idea by proposing legislation.
This has been my complaint about Obama (and Clinton.) Obama has raised tons of money, but he squandered an opportunity already in his hand to actually change the world.
Instead of telling us how he would lead, he could have led and talked about how he has led, and then he would not be in such a close race.
It's sad that the Senate couldn't get a vote on the carried interest loophole, but Obama ought to be pushing the fact that he is for closing it.
Its much fairer than the sex-ed ad.
OK, somebody else mentioned this ad, so I am going to let loose. I have emailed Kevin (as well as many other bloggers and reporters) several times about this, which has gone unreported in any major blog or newspaper thus far.
The short version: the same "sex ed for kindergartners" that McCain is bashing Obama for has been funded by Bush for years via a grant administered by the CDC. Not just that, it has been implemented in such "radical" places as Tennessee and North Carolina.
So I say to anyone else reading this thread: you're either with me or you're against me. Either tell me why this is not a story worth reporting, or join me in trying to get Kevin or some other blogger or newspaper reporter to break the story. I would be really interested to hear the argument for why it's not a major-media story, e.g.,
Who cares if Bush has been funding "sex ed for kindergartners" for years and if NC and TN have been implementing such programs? That couldn't possibly give valuable context to the bill Obama voted for. Everyone knows that Bush (as well as the people of Tennessee and North Carolina) have the same kind of radical anti-family agenda as Obama, the agenda that the bible-thumper McCain is trying to protect us against. Why would we want to report a new, hard fact like this? It's much more effective simply to keep whining about the Republicans lying. No one could possibly be interested in a Republican administration supporting the same thing Obama is being attacked for.
OK, who wants to make an argument like that?
Perhaps I'm confused about what it is that members of Congress do, but I was under the impression that, unlike the rest of us, if Barack Obama has a "good idea about re-regulation of Wall Street" he is in a position to implement that idea by proposing legislation.
He has. It's just that the current occupant of the White House doesn't seem like the sort of guy who is keen on helping Obama or any other senators deal with this issue.
Submitted by Independent Perspective (not verified) on Tue Sep. 16, 2008 7:37 PM PDT.
IF we ever have to think Kevin Drum, it because he cause us to think, to pause.
And for that, Drum is golden, is he not?
Thanks Kevin - for giving us the the floor and the forum. We just might be on to something here and it is because of you and your commitment to openness. Thanks dude.
And inkblot too, of course, the regal cat who is above it all.
My donations to the Obama campaign are really just thank-you notes for saving us from the John Edwards catastrophe-in-the-making, the Hillary Clinton permanent-soap-opera, and (hopefully) the Hundred-Years War of Palin/McCain.
As long as Obama gets elected, restocks the government with competent staff once again, keeps his cool and tries his best, I really don't care about anything else.
Mine is the audacity of modest hope.
From my perspective, of course, he not only hasn't solved our economic problems, he's actually helped to create them. From McCain's perspective, however, I believe that he would dispute the causative relationship between some of the legislation we've been discussing, which he championed, and the current financial meltdown.
My point,however, did not concern who was more responsible for the current situation but rather was an attempt to point out that people like Kevin tend to give Obama credit for simply talking about things intelligently but don't seem to expect him to take a stand on a difficult issue and fight for what he believes in. I don't think that's right. Borrowing from Anatole France, I would say that it is by acts and not words that people live.
On another level, I was trying to express something that is worrying me about Obama and what his election might portend for the Democratic Party. This is something I've been thinking about for the past few months. The question "who is Obama" is important: Is he a believer in "High Broderism"? A DLC mole? Ronald Reagan's true heir? Or is he, as his followers on the left believe, "the one" who will restore Camelot and change the Democratic Party from a docile, ineffective party DLC leaning party to a dynamic reform party with an agenda of social and economic justice?
I've been following politics in the UK for most of my life and recent developments in our sister party, Labour, have but me in mind of a scenario in which an Obama victory is actually a terrible, possibly irreversible defeat for Liberalism. It all depends on who Obama really is. Consider that under Tony Blair, Labour was constantly being faced with having to choose between the lesser of two evils: That is to say, he often made proposals which were contrary to the Labour Party's most cherished or longstand principles but which enjoyed considerable Conservative support. Thus, Labour was confronted with a terrible dilemma ---- vote against Blair, and bring down his government even though the result would surely be that the Conservative would come to power and ram through something even worse or vote against their principles. Choosing the lesser evil, Labour MP's voted again and again in support of what were essentially conservative proposals put forward by their leader with the result that the UK has now shifted significantly rightward. Despite having been "in power" for so many years, Labour has achieved almost none of its traditional liberal aims and its credibility with the public has nearly reached the vanishing point.
If Obama is Ronald Reagan's true heir as Tony Bair and Gordon Brown have been proven to be Margaret Thatcher's, I fear that we may suffer the same fate as Labour: Eight years of compromise, forced always to settle for the lesser evil, watching our liberal addenda and the peoples' trust in our party fade to the vanishing point, followed in eight years by the election of an even more conservative Republican.
It is difficult to know what is best, but I believe we should debate the thing while there is still time.
Okay, so now the U.S. will provide $85 billion to AIG in a so-called "loan". This is effective nationalization. We now pretty much have a state-owned financial system thanks to a Republican administration, despite having no legal authority to do this. They will borrow money from China to nationalize finance. Meanwhile, the American people are likely to vote for an old coot for president and a door knob for VP. Anybody who does not recognize our country is dying is blind.
----Hell, last year Senate Democrats couldn't even bring to a vote the biggest no-brainer of all time: a bill to close the carried interest loophole that allows billionaire hedge fund owners to avoid paying income tax at normal rates.----
Let's try, shall we, to get past the FICTION that Democrats control the Congress when Republicans filibuster everything against their self-interest and Bush can veto and will veto anything the Democrats manage to slide past. Democrats DO NOT control Congress. Please stop repeating this crapola narrative.
I think only one Senate democrat voted for the Gramm-Leach-Bliley bill in 1999 which repealed Glass Steagal -Fritz Hollins. See http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm...
So it is not true that Dems voted for all the deregulation.
Right on schedule, Sebastian Malleby notes that the repeal of G-S was supported by Democrats.
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/postpartisan/?hpid=opinionsbox1
Submitted by Brock (not verified) on Wed Sep. 17, 2008 6:15 AM PDT.
This is completely armchair campaign strategizing here, but it seems to me like this would be a good time for the Obama campaign to remind people that John McCain is one of the Keating Five.
"The last time the U.S. faced a financial crisis of this magnitude, John McCain was accepting $112,000 in campaign contributions from Charles Keating in exchange for favors in the U.S. Senate. Keating was later convicted of fraud, racketeering, and conspiracy for his role in the collapse of Lincoln Savings and Loan. Can we trust John McCain in this time of economic crisis?"
Let's try, shall we, to get past the FICTION that Democrats control the Congress when Republicans filibuster everything against their self-interest and Bush can veto and will veto anything the Democrats manage to slide past. Democrats DO NOT control Congress. Please stop repeating this crapola narrative.
Worth repeating for all those concerned Mitches so troubled that Obama didn't entrance the Senate into regulating Wall Street. But why not give the benefit of the doubt to the mavericky Deregulator of Keating 5 fame who during 26 years in Congress did nothing but oppose reigning in the casino. Seems fair.
No Shit, Lucy. Let's all worry incessantly about whether Obama is secretly Ronald Reagan while we *know* for a fact that McCain is a disaster of epic proportions just waiting to happen.
And Anonymous, your musings about the UK and Tony Blair just described the 8 years of Bill Clinton to a tee. I think that the 8 years of Clinton was better than anything McCain could ever provide, so if Obama sticks with the same type of administration as Clinton, we're in a lot better shape than we are now.
Kevin: I have my doubts that repealing Glass-Steagall contributed much to our current problems, but in any case the repeal was supported by Robert Rubin and Larry Summer and signed into law by Bill Clinton. Ditto for the Commodity Futures Modernization Act a year later.
I can't believe you're saying this Kevin. The repeal of these acts enabled the Enron debacle, among others, and even worse, they permitted the creation of the completely unregulated credit default swaps market and all of the securitized mortgage instruments, including CDOs, SIVs, etc., which lie at the heart of the meltdown in our financial markets.
I'm sure Phil Gramm, the sleazebag who engineered their passage, will take comfort in your words. Clinton, Robert Rubin and Goldman Sachs are not on the side of average guy. Clinton and Rubin are hugely wealthy and have nothing in common with most people, financially. They don't deserve a pass, just because they're Democrats.
