by Teh Nutroots | Right. First, the good news. Our Congressional have decided to put their struggle for power aside to save the nation. Phew.
I guess this is what it takes---this level of bad news:
As Senator Christopher J. Dodd, Democrat of Connecticut and chairman of the Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee, put it Friday morning on the ABC program “Good Morning America,” the congressional leaders were told “that we’re literally maybe days away from a complete meltdown of our financial system, with all the implications here at home and globally.”...
When Mr. Schumer described the meeting as “somber,” Mr. Dodd cut in. “Somber doesn’t begin to justify the words,” he said. “We have never heard language like this.”
“What you heard last evening,” he added, “is one of those rare moments, certainly rare in my experience here, is Democrats and Republicans deciding we need to work together quickly.” (NYT)
Even when threatened with the death of our entire financial system, the Democrats seem hellbent on protecting the taxpayers who are going to be financing this massive rescue operation as well as the invisible cartel of people and institutions who need a bail-out to reassure them. That's Democrats for you....always worrying about the long term and the big picture.
[I]t was clear they continued to examine ways to make clear that the government was stepping up not just to help the major financial firms but also to protect the interests of American taxpayers and families by safeguarding their pensions and college savings, and by preventing any further drying up of consumer credit....
In addition to potential stimulus measures, which could include an extension of unemployment benefits and spending on public infrastructure projects, Democrats said they intended to consider measures to help stem home foreclosures and stabilize real estate values....
“We have got to deal with the foreclosure issue,” Mr. Dodd said. “You have got to stop that hemorrhaging..If you don’t, the problem doesn’t go away. Ben Bernanke has said it over and over again. Hank Paulson recognizes it. This problem began with bad lending practices. Those are his words, not mine" (NYT)
As for Sen. John McCain, what did he have to say about all this? Via Tom Bozzo at Angry Bear:
This is the text of the Green Bay speech from the McCain website:
Finally, the Federal Reserve should get back to its core business of responsibly managing our money supply and inflation. It needs to get out of the business of bailouts. The Fed needs to return to protecting the purchasing power of the dollar. A strong dollar will reduce energy and food prices. It will stimulate sustainable economic growth and get this economy moving again.
Yeah, even I can see that McCain doesn't know even as much about the Federal Reserve and its functions as I do. It's the McCain version of Palin's speech on energy.
So as Bozzo says, if this is the best McCain's boffins can come up with, "as a big picture matter neither McCain nor his economic advisers deserve to be let anywhere near the tiller of the metaphorical supertanker."
Economist Brad DeLong says bluntly: John McCain is not qualified to be president.
The prevention of large-scale bank failures--"bailouts," in McCain's terms--is an essential part of responsibly managing the money supply. John McCain does not know that. And nobody working for John McCain knows that (Grasping Reality)
Hell, even W knows it. Are the Republicans really that keen on again electing people who don't understand how the system even works?
Here's W's speech. See there? Even he knows, or seems to know, what the Fed is for, or at least had someone around who could explain it to him.
As for W's part in bringing about the financial apocalpyse, along with the Iraq war and a host of other problems, we can---as he says---debate it later.
First they'll plunder the Main Streeters to get the Wall Streeters out of the mess they've made. Then they'll get back to lying to the Main Street about why it all had to happen. Somehow I don't think this is going to scare them straight.
If Bush's administration proves anything, it proves that we really ARE our own worst enemies. (And by "we" I mean Bush and his GOP and media enablers---most of whom are now trying to get McCain in power so they can continue doing what they were doing before).
I know this is what has to be done because people who know better than I do say so. That doesn't keep me from feeling the same as this guy, at least till my sunny disposition kicks in. Who knows? Maybe this is a wake-up call to the whole nation to reexamine the way we think about money and government. We Americans have a history of putting off difficult actions till we no longer have a choice, and then amazing ourselves and the rest of the world with our ability to come through.
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