Hi everyone-
It is pretty obvious that the McCain campaign wants to get down and dirty this last month of the election after the "terrorist" namecalling and "elitist" smears. I think the Keating Five scandal needs to be dragged out front and center again, especially in light of the financial crisis that has been brought about by a lack of ethical banking practices.
I own the domain, www.Keating5.com, I bought it last winter when I was volunteering for Ron Paul. Right now I don't have anything up on it. I'll be honest, I am not very talented in terms of getting a website up and running. However if anyone wants to collaborate on a site outlining the Keating Five scandal and/or get the attention of the official Obama campaign to run with it I'd be happy to get some anti-McCain material up.
Send me a message if you are interested!
I urge everyone to call your congress creatures and let them know this bailout plan is absolutely unacceptable. Paulson is nuts if he thinks anyone with a brain is going to agree to this. We need reasoned, rational, LEGAL control over this banking crisis, not a Treasury Secretary who thinks he is above the law. This entire Bush administration seems to be guilty of this, and I for one am damned sick of it. PLease go to the link and read the entire post — well worth it.
naked capitalism: Why You Should Hate the Treasury Bailout Proposal
A mere two weeks ago, the Fannie/Freddie rescue was called the mother of all bailouts by some commentators. If the plans of the Administration come to fruition, it will shortly be surpassed by the $700 billion mortgage rescue plan proposed by Hank Paulson late last week.
The increase of the request from the initial $500 billion and the release of the shockingly short, sweeping text of the proposed legislation has lead to reactions of consternation among the knowledgeable, but whether this translates into enough popular ire fast enough to restrain this freight train remains to be seen.
First, let s focus on the aspect that should get the proposal dinged or renegotiated regardless of any possible merit, namely, that it gives the Treasury imperial power with respect to a simply huge amount of funds. $700 billion is comparable to the hard cost of the Iraq war, bigger than the annual Pentagon budget. And mind you, $700 billion is not the maximum that the Treasury may spend, it s the ceiling on the outstandings at any one time. It s a balance sheet number, not an expenditure limit.
But here is the truly offensive section of an overreaching piece of legislation:
Decisions by the Secretary pursuant to the authority of this Act are non-reviewable and committed to agency discretion, and may not be reviewed by any court of law or any administrative agency.
This puts the Treasury’s actions beyond the rule of law. This is a financial coup d etat, with the only limitation the $700 billion balance sheet figure. The measure already gives the Treasury the authority not simply to buy dud mortgage paper but other assets as it deems fit. There is no accountability beyond a report contents undefined to Congress three months into the program and semiannually thereafter. The Treasury could via incompetence or venality grossly overpay for assets and advisory services, and fail to exclude consultants with conflicts of interest, and there would be no recourse. Given the truly appalling track record of this Administration in its outsourcing, this is not an idle worry.
Richard, I like your proposal to solve the current crisis. Seems like it would be much less costly than the bailout, without bailing anyone out:
Richard Saunders’ Alternative to the bailout
The current crisis is that the banks won't handle commercial paper because someone "broke the buck"- meaning they lost money on commercial paper. This commercial paper works like a lubricant in the engine of commerce. It's really not the fuel-or the spark- but is needed to keep the engine from seizing up.
The current plan is for the US to invest in bundled bad mortgages and hope that banks will provide liquidity. It is presented as the “only” option. physician. This is an expensive and rushed potential solution to a bad problem, and risky in four senses:
(1) It is very expensive, even in the best of scenarios
(2) It might not work
(3) It puts all of our eggs in one basket.
(4) It does not address the critical problem.
1. There are those who think we might get some of our money back; and staging the bailout in three phases might limit the cost. On the other hand, it still is an enormous initial outlay.
2. It might not work because it doesn't address the critical problem. It is a bit like telling a diabetic going into a coma they need a radical and expensive change in diet. In fact, while fixing the diet is important, in the short run they need a quick infusion of sugar.
3. It is unlikely that this is the only option. To present it as such creates the appearance of a rush to judgment.
4. The critical problem is the shortage of commercial paper. This current plan deals with what is one of the plausible antecedent causes of this shortage, but there are likely to be others. But the solution actually does not supply commercial paper, but deal with the plausible antecedent.
5. Richard Saunder’s Solution:
We should create a federal entity (“C-Fed”) to provide the lubricant for the engine of commerce. The C-Fed could issue short term “commercial paper” ("C-notes"). The C-Fed could charge for this service, and rates could be adjusted by the C-Fed just as the Fed adjusts the rates on T bills. The maximum cost to the taxpayers would be modest, the equivalent of the maximum outlay for a given day. The C-Fed could charge different rates based on how willing different users are to abide to certain rules. For example, one could give more favorable rates to smaller firms, or to domestic firms, or to firms that hire US workers, etc.
Under this plan, the involvement of the US government could float. For example, in good times, the entity could retract, letting Wall Street handle commercial paper. In bad times, such as the current crisis, the C-Fed would open the gates and let more flow. The key point is that the flow is more like a tide- in and out- rather than an "investment".
Advantages over the current proposal
1.: it is a nearly-zero-sum game. This is the function of an ideal friction-less lubricant. The C-fed isn't really trying to make money on the deal. It works more like the postmaster-making enough to pay for itself. It can't get too powerful because Wall Street can always use normal commericial paper if it wants to, and it is available. There is huge outlay.
2 It addresses the liquidity problem directly.
3. It could be adjusted to allow "monetary policy" to be implemented.
3) It isn't necessarily the only solution. Congress could decide to purchase some bad bundles, if it wanted to help "Wall Street". Or it could try a variety of tricks, none of which are all-or-nothing.
Comments:
No-one is "bailed out". Banks that were stupid pay for their stupidity, but the widget makers don't have to pay for that stupidity. No-one will be rewarded for greed, or stupidity.
There are certain problems with won't address. For example, investors whose life savings are tied up bad bundles, will still suffer. But that can be handled separately, through other governmental programs, if necessary.
Political advantages. We can get away from the term "bail-out". We can avoid a huge and obviously bad investment that will cripple the budget in the short term and might not even work in the long run. We avoid "nationalization". We keep a pile of money out of the hands of the executive branch. Instead of a huge one-time thing, we allow Congress or a C-Fed to make adjustments as needed. Philosophically, it is "merely" a modification of the cash system which no-one, seems to complain about. The C-Fed addresses the critical problem directly, rather than trying indirectly to solve the problem by solving a different problem. It thus is more transparent to everyone. Since there are no actual purchases of property, we don't have to wonder whose pockets are being lined in the process (???). We could have the chairman of the C-Fed be different from the chairman of the T-Fed, so power is better distributed.
Other advantages: it seems both "old" (in the sense of being an extension of the cash system, or of the Fed), and "new" (in the sense of not being on the table at present). It might allow Congress to use it to gain points on all sides.
Some liberals complain this doesn’t deal with the root causes of the problem. Surely it does not. Again, that is like saying that supplying sugar at the right time to a diabetic doesn’t deal with the root cause of diabetes. It does solve the critical problem of insufficient sugar in the brain. Some conservatives complain that this solution will nationalize a process properly given over to private enterprise. That is not identical to, but similar to, saying the federal government should not issue cash or T-bills. However, it should be emphasized that Saunder’s solution is a fix to a crisis, and should prevent similar crises in the future. Most importantly, no bank is nationalized.
Liberals, Conservatives, Independents and Libertarians all recognize that the most important issue in this election is the Bailout and Barack must lead the nation to realize that the Bailout is a DISASTER AND MUST BE STOPPED!
62% of Americans are already against the bailout! http://efinancedirectory.com/articles/62_Percent_of_Americans_Against_Subprime_Mortgage_Bailout.html
Liberals would like to help distressed homeowners. This takes appropriations. Where are you going to find the money for your plans? THE BAILOUT WILL BANKRUPT THE NATION!
Conservatives would like new healthy banks to replace the corrupt rotting banks. THE BAILOUT WILL KEEP THE FAILED BANKS ALIVE FOR PLENTY OF TIME, preventing new ones that are solvent from financing the recovery. THE BAILOUT WILL BANKRUPT THE NATION!
Independents want new blood in Washington. Those failed and corrupt banks kept alive by the bailout will spend their govt largesse on lobbyists to keep their favorite corrupt congressmen on the take! THE BAILOUT WILL BANKRUPT THE NATION!
Libertarians know that the bailout will complete the dismemberment and destruction of our Constitution.
Barack, please speak out against this bill before McCain takes full credit for destroying it. SPEAK OUT NOW!
Ron Paul Patriot
http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/09/16/mccain-calls-for-commission-to-study-wall-street-woes/
McCain suggests we need to make a commission to study the problems on wall street and then report to congress. How about McCain recall a question posed to him from Dr. Ron Paul:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oUZwL9GPcNw
This answer provided by John McCain clearly illustrates how McCain knows JACK SHIT about economic policies... when will the Obama camp bring this point up? He calls for a commission to investigate wall street when there's already a very influential group of experts reporting to the president.
I think Barack Obama should state that should he be president, he'll have weekly meetings with this group and allow this group to file a monthly report to congress and at least 1 day where members of congress can offiicially meet with these people and addressed their concerns on the record after reviewing their monthly reports.
Sarah more experience then Obama?
Obama was a state legistlator for 8 years representing Chicago, a city of 2.8 mililion. while governor Palin represented 5000 for 8 years. for the last three years Senator obama represented 12.8 million people of Illinois while Palin for the last 2 years represented the 680,000 of Alaska. Obama may have a small amount of international experience, but Palin has NO international and no National experience what so ever.
This is a real picture of the "CONSERVATIVE" alaska governor.
Now I am a hardcore libral but no politician should dress like this. Especially if you want to be the leader of the free world. In times of economic crisis, in times of mortgage crisis, in times of energy crisis. This is an OUTRAGE!
One of Barack Obama's best qualities is his ability to relate to people of varied backgrounds and produce consensus on divisive issues, as we have especially seen the last two months of this interminable process of getting the Clintons out of the primary campaign.
I cannot wait to see the Clintons concede this race so we can focus on more stories like the one below, about Barack's childhood ambitions of leadership and his true vision for our country. I also can't wait to really get after John McCain and that can't begin in earnest until the Clintons take a hike.
W hile you're reading this article take a minute to think of how Barack's inclusive, consensus-building leadership style contrasts with the Clintons' Saul Alito-based, divide-and-conquer, blur-the-issue style in dealing with their private business before getting to Washington and the legacy of their 'grand plan' (Don't Ask Don't Tell, NAFTA, pointless Balkan conflict, ignorance of Afghanistan) after achieving a mandate for change in 1992.
Change is again the buzzword in this election and the only candidate who has a clean slate to pursue the kind of change we need (chaotic-neutral change based on consensus and against special interest bullies) is Barack Obama.
Barack Obama = Big Opportunity!
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7350775.stm
Jakarta classmates recall 'Barry' Obama
By Lucy Williamson BBC News, Jakarta
Primary School 1 in Jakarta's Menteng district is an unlikely place to look for an American presidential hopeful.
Hidden down a narrow street in the Indonesian capital, overlooked by the big houses of the city's elite, it is easily missed, except for the bubbling noise of schoolchildren drifting over the fence.
But this is where Barack Obama - the man aiming to be America's Democratic nominee for president - spent some of his childhood.
He's made much of his varied upbringing during the course of his campaign, and the qualities and vision it gave him.
A new book about his time here has just been launched by an Indonesian publisher - and there's also a lot of interest in what he might do for US-Indonesia relations should he reach the White House.
'Early ambition'
In the playground of his old school, I met up with two of his classmates - Mary and Rina. Was there anything special about him, I asked?
"No," said Mary. "He wasn't a special boy, just an ordinary one. But maybe that's the special thing; he had a capability to blend with any kind of situation."
One thing marked him out as different though, said Rina - his ambition, noted in the school memoir book.
"At that time, here in Indonesia, all the parents pushed their kids: 'You have to become a doctor' or 'You have to become an engineer'," she told me. "But he wrote that he'd like to be a president. So we thought, 'Oh in your dreams!'"
Well, a lot has changed since those days. Barry, as he was known then, is now campaigning to be the Democratic nominee for exactly that job. And his progress is talked about a lot in Indonesia - on campus, on television, and of course on the internet.
'There's obviously interest'
Enda Nasution is one of the country's best-known bloggers. Two months ago he started a group on the networking website Facebook called "Indonesians for Obama 08".
Already he has around 700 members, and a lively message board. He told me Mr Obama's appeal wasn't based on his policies - in his opinion there's little difference on that score between the three main presidential hopefuls.
But, he said, people are looking for a certain kind of character: "Someone we can trust; someone that can inspire people; that can symbolise all the things currently happening in the world."
The US embassy here has also been tapping into this new-found interest in their elections.
In February, when the US primary race reached a crescendo on Super Tuesday, Ambassador Cameron Hume invited Indonesian students and politicians to his house to watch the results come in.
He hasn't been surprised at the level of interest in Mr Obama, given that his primary school is around the corner.
"There obviously is an interest, the same way as whenever there's an ethnic tie, people get more interested. So if you have a candidate from Wyoming, people from Wyoming are more interested in the election. I think that spreads a little bit here."
Rooting for opponents
The identification is running pretty strong, judging by a mock-vote, held at the Super Tuesday event. According to Ambassador Hume, it gave Mr Obama a win that "his campaign team probably would have been satisfied with".
So is there anyone here who's rooting for the other candidates? Well yes, of course there is, Julia Ismaya for one, an employee of an international NGO.
She likens "Obama syndrome" to a kind of MTV culture, where television picks on a particular theme, and the audience internalises it.
It may be more about identity politics than actual policy, but most Indonesians do believe a change in the White House could bring a big change in the US's attitude to their country.
After years of a foreign policy that many Indonesians viewed as anti-Muslim, who better to have in the most powerful job in the world, they say, than someone who's lived among Muslims, and seen their world from the inside.
Back in 1987, John McCain took $112,000 in bribes from Charles Keating, Jr. to smooth things over for a certain Savings and Loan. What resulted was $2.1Bil in losses for the american taxpayer. Michael Milken went to jail and paid $1 Bil in fines but John McCain gets to run for president?
Hopefully Barack can do well enough tomorrow to force the Clintons out of the race so that everyone can move on to focusing about the evils of John McCain.
The controversial George W. Bush-sponsored poll in South Carolina mentioned John McCain's role in the so-called Keating Five scandal, and McCain says his involvement in the scandal "will probably be on my tombstone." What exactly did McCain do?
In early 1987, at the beginning of his first Senate term, McCain attended two meetings with federal banking regulators to discuss an investigation into Lincoln Savings and Loan, an Irvine, Calif., thrift owned by Arizona developer Charles Keating. Federal auditors were investigating Keating's banking practices, and Keating, fearful that the government would seize his S&L, sought intervention from a number of U.S. senators.
At Keating's behest, four senators--McCain and Democrats Dennis DeConcini of Arizona, Alan Cranston of California, and John Glenn of Ohio--met with Ed Gray, chairman of the Federal Home Loan Bank Board, on April 2. Those four senators and Sen. Don Riegle, D-Mich., attended a second meeting at Keating's behest on April 9 with bank regulators in San Francisco.
Regulators did not seize Lincoln Savings and Loan until two years later. The Lincoln bailout cost taxpayers $2.6 billion, making it the biggest of the S&L scandals. In addition, 17,000 Lincoln investors lost $190 million.
In November 1990, the Senate Ethics Committee launched an investigation into the meetings between the senators and the regulators. McCain, Cranston, DeConcini, Glenn, and Riegle became known as the Keating Five.
(Keating himself was convicted in January 1993 of 73 counts of wire and bankruptcy fraud and served more than four years in prison before his conviction was overturned. Last year, he pleaded guilty to four counts of fraud and was sentenced to time served.)
McCain defended his attendance at the meetings by saying Keating was a constituent and that Keating's development company, American Continental Corporation, was a major Arizona employer. McCain said he wanted to know only whether Keating was being treated fairly and that he had not tried to influence the regulators. At the second meeting, McCain told the regulators, "I wouldn't want any special favors for them," and "I don't want any part of our conversation to be improper."
But Keating was more than a constituent to McCain--he was a longtime friend and associate. McCain met Keating in 1981 at a Navy League dinner in Arizona where McCain was the speaker. Keating was a former naval aviator himself, and the two men became friends. Keating raised money for McCain's two congressional campaigns in 1982 and 1984, and for McCain's 1986 Senate bid. By 1987, McCain campaigns had received $112,000 from Keating, his relatives, and his employees--the most received by any of the Keating Five. (Keating raised a total of $300,000 for the five senators.)
After McCain's election to the House in 1982, he and his family made at least nine trips at Keating's expense, three of which were to Keating's Bahamas retreat. McCain did not disclose the trips (as he was required to under House rules) until the scandal broke in 1989. At that point, he paid Keating $13,433 for the flights.
And in April 1986, one year before the meeting with the regulators, McCain's wife, Cindy, and her father invested $359,100 in a Keating strip mall.
The Senate Ethics Committee probe of the Keating Five began in November 1990, and committee Special Counsel Robert Bennett recommended that McCain and Glenn be dropped from the investigation. They were not. McCain believes Democrats on the committee blocked Bennett's recommendation because he was the lone Keating Five Republican.
In February 1991, the Senate Ethics Committee found McCain and Glenn to be the least blameworthy of the five senators. (McCain and Glenn attended the meetings but did nothing else to influence the regulators.) McCain was guilty of nothing more than "poor judgment," the committee said, and declared his actions were not "improper nor attended with gross negligence." McCain considered the committee's judgment to be "full exoneration," and he contributed $112,000 (the amount raised for him by Keating) to the U.S. Treasury.
HRC definitely over reacted to this minor controversy. When I heard her talk about shooting birds in Scranton, it reminded me of John Kerry pretending to be a hunter, and we all remember how that turned out right? I think the NRA showed a picture of him with a pink poodle!
Did anyone else catch that she decided on drinking Crown Royal. If she's so big on helping blue collar Americans get by, why is she drinking a Canadian whiskey? I think tomorrow Barack should do a shot of Makers Mark!
Seems there's a conflict brewing in the Clinton household and this time its not about another woman!
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5jgTupmKfKbwd5BiA8L-IGzDkmnlAD8VTVRCO0
John McCain has agreed to use public funds for his campaign over the next two months. Most likely this is due to him raising such low amounts of money over the past month, less than half of Obama's take.
Since he's willing to spend 100 years and probably $100T on Iraq, he might as well take the $84M, chump change to him.
Barack is up in the latest Gallup Poll by 9 points and has consistently been ahead of Clinton since the beginning of March.
We all need this primary season to end early so we can focus on the battle ahead with McCain. The easiest way to do this is to help ensure an Obama victory in Pennsylvania, which would probably force Clinton to quit.
Please join me in calling volunteers in neighboring PA states to get them to volunteer in PA before the primary. Go to http://my.barackobama.com/page/contact/splash/callohio4pa
It only takes a few minutes to reach out to a potential volunteer and your calls can make a really big difference.
For the past week I’ve been campaigning for Barack Obama. Mostly I’ve been blogging and also phone banking. I’ve called 250-300 voters in Indiana and PA. The reception has been mostly positive, but there are still some Hillary supporters out there.
The reason I am supporting Obama is that I believe he is a special type of leader, one that can bring together the nation, as he alluded to during his speech on race, A More Perfect Union.
