Stephen Views the News February 27, 2009
http://stephenviewsthenews.blogspot.com/
* When the cards are stacked against you - Capital One just sent me a “Dear Stephen” notice informing me that outstanding credit card balances can now be charged a 24% interest rate and that they have first rights to my testicles. Some credit card companies are charging up to 32% interest on outstanding balances. I pay my credit card balances in full so fortunately, I do not to need to pay their exorbitant interest rates, rates that should be illegal in any sane and reasonable society. When such loan rates are charged outside of the hallowed banking industry the loaner is generally associated with the word “mob.” The question is, “How much longer are we as a nation going to stand for such usurious and abusive acts by the financial industry?” The financial crisis that embroils our nation is part and parcel of this under-regulated, unconstrained and free-wheeling industry. Left unchecked, the greed of the financial industry damaged all of us. The greed was so great and so widespread that ironically, it has even led to its own destruction.
What has taken place in the financial world reminds me of a rare disease that inflicted the brother of someone I know. He has a disease known as Prader-Willi syndrome. One aspect of this disease is that it does not allow an individual to feel full when eating and results in eating binges. “Parents of children with the syndrome often have to lock the kitchen cabinets and refrigerator to restrict the child's access to food.” Perhaps we can characterize what has inflicted the financial community as the Prader-Willie Sutton Syndrome.
How did the financial deterioration of our nation occur? Can you say “special interests?” The Wizards of Wall Street hired sophisticated influencers of congress (lobbyists) to convince OUR representatives to enact laws and regulations that benefitted only the interests of the financial industry. An example of this special interest inter-marriage with elected officials is the likes of former Senator Phil Gramm. It was Gramm who spearheaded much of the legislation that contributed to the easing of restrictions on the financial industry and that subsequently contributed to the financial crisis we face today. When Gramm left “public service” he took very lucrative jobs lobbying for members of the financial industry. One such interest he represented was Swiss bank USB, up to its Swiss cheese in deceptive practices. In a settlement last week with the U.S. Justice Department USB agreed “to pay a fine of $780 million and to disclose about 250 names of U.S. clients it said had committed tax fraud.” USB also agreed to provide information about 19,000 other accounts held by U.S. citizens. Gramm is not an exception to how special interests corrupt the fiduciary responsibility of elected officials. They fund their political campaigns, hire family and friends and further reward such officials with lucrative positions when they leave congress. It is especially prevalent in the fields of banking, energy, telecommunications, insurance and defense. It has proven especially damaging to the country.
The financial crisis in America was no accident. It was an accident waiting to happen. The core had been rotting for some time and eventually the structure had to collapse. Both Democrat and Republican politicians are culpable. They allowed themselves to be bought like prostitutes who hawk their wares on street corners. I offer an apology to prostitutes for associating them with politicians who too often exhibit less veracity and integrity in plying their trade than hookers. I expect that we will see reforms since they usually follow crises that reach critical mass. A call for reform has already begun. European Union leaders have met and called for sweeping financial regulations. German Chancellor Angela Merkel said at this meeting of Europe’s largest economies, "All financial markets, products and participants including hedge funds and other private pools of capital which may pose a systematic risk must be subjected to appropriate oversight or regulation." The U.S will soon follow - as it did after other financial debacles like the Market Crash of 1929 and the savings and loan failures in the 1980s.
Some say that “it is the way government works” and “politicians are always in the pockets of the privileged.” I will accept the reality that the privileged will have more influence than the working stiffs but one cannot accept the overabundance of influence they exerted over our government representatives for the last two decades. If we as a nation accept such a reality, a reality that plagues third world countries, we deserve no better. And let us not totally excuse ourselves. To be a member of a democracy, by its nature, requires responsibility on the part of citizens. We keep re-electing too many leeches. Perhaps we are too busy with our Blackberries, DVDs, Hi-Def wide screens, Blu-Rays, Ipods and Face Books to pay attention. As the ability to communicate has increased, our communication seems to have decreased. It would certainly make for an interesting sociological analysis to graph the ability to communicate with actual communication. How prescient is Verizon’s long-standing tagline to their commercials, “Can you hear me now?”
While on the subject of credit card companies it is worth noting that their possible failure could be the next financial disaster facing the American economy. One of the best articles I have read on the subject was penned this week by Arianna Huffington at the Huffington Post.
Late last year congress passed a weak credit card reform bill that does not even go into effect until the middle of 2010. Once again congress offers us too little too late. Consumers Union is providing a petition to congress urging them to pass credit card reform legislation NOW. At the site consumersunion.org one can click on the tab Take Action to sign the petition.
* Obama Watch ~ transparency - Contrary to conservative opinion a very pro-active program is needed to reverse the economic downturn crippling our country. Despite virtual unanimity among Republican congressmen who oppose the legislation, coupled with their usual plethora of untruths, the legislation has passed and we await its influence. I have followed the comments by a large number of economists who feel the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act takes us in the right direction. Regardless if one is pro or con relative to the legislation, the public will know what is happening. And unlike the machinations of the previous administration, the stimulus bill is open to public view. Details can be found at recovery.gov. The oversight will be spearheaded by a former Secret Service agent and recent Inspector General of the Department of the Interior who exposed mismanagement, non-management and illegal activities at Interior during the Bush administration. Earl Devaney will be chairman of the new Recovery Act Transparency and Accountability Board. Vice President Joe Biden also will be given a role coordinating oversight of stimulus spending. Such actions can only enhance a democracy that in recent times has exhibited more pomp than circumstance.
* Reining in the Pentagon ~ a formidable foe – We have seen much written recently about the billions of dollars the Pentagon spends on weapons and systems that only benefit the defense industry and their lobbyists, not U.S. security. Congress is finally holding hearings on the tremendous cost to and waste of America’s over-extended financial resources. TruMajority.org is providing a petition to congress urging the elimination of such unnecessary bloating of the federal budget. Already an army of well-funded defense lobbyists and defense contractors are descending on Washington to ensure their cash cow is not endangered. It is time that our votes and voices be cast against the power of the greenbacks that have been shaping the conversation.
"The moneychangers have fled from their high seats in the temple of our civilization." Franklin D. Roosevelt, from his 1933 inauguration speech
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601070&sid=atiIm5LQRuNs&refer=home
http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/2008/07/foreclosure-phil.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/01/21/short-on-economic-underst_n_82529.html
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24844889/
http://money.cnn.com/2008/02/18/news/newsmakers/tully_gramm.fortune/index.htm
http://lonesomemongoose.wordpress.com/2008/08/15/phil-gramm-is-back-attends-
mccain-campaign-briefing-on-economics
http://lonesomemongoose.wordpress.com/2008/06/06/mccain-economic-adviser-phil-gramm-back-in-the-news-again/
http://www.politicalbase.com/profile/Chris%20Brown/blog/&blogId=3104
http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/ 2008/08/14/phil-gramm-attends-mccain-campaign-briefing/print/
http://www.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,1833106,00.html
Or, Who is Phil Gramm?
Wall-Street Casino Owners Hold Public Wallets (Fundamentals) Hostage
Wall-Street Casino Operators got drunk......Wall-Street should stop their whining and get over their self induced mental recession. Beware of Confidence Men! Remember - Fraud is Fraud; no matter how you slice it or dice it, a pig with lipstick, is still a pig!
In Los Vegas, not unlike Wall-Street, the house is rigged to always come out on top. This is not a solution, only a sturdier yoke...a new and improved mousetrap, if you will!
Please read book review at link: Secrets of the Federal Reserve
The current financial crisis is indeed grave, having resulted in the nation's largest bank failure (Washington Mutual) and taken down the nation's largest insurance company (AIG) and mortgage holders (Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac) as well as three of the top investment houses (Bear Stearns, Lehman Bros., and Merrill Lynch) and threatening countless more failures both here and abroad -- in particular, there are hundreds of trillions of dollars tied up in bad securities in the interconnected international finance system; and most disturbingly, no one knows how much they are really worth, since no one wants to buy them. The credit system has frozen up; and without free-flowing credit, businesses go out of business.
Because this crisis is threatening the existence of banks and businesses it is threatening the life savings and jobs of millions of people in the United States and abroad. It is not an exaggeration for this to be called by so many the gravest financial crisis since the Great Depression.
And the causes of the current problem are much the same as those of the Great Depression. As my late father had been saying since the Reagan administration, as more and more of the New Deal safeguards set up under FDR and the Democratic Congress in the '30s were being torn down, we ran more and more risk of having a big financial collapse, as he lived through, in desperate conditions, during the Depression. So it's worth our while to look back briefly and see what worked and what went terribly wrong.
In a remarkably candid op-ed in the Washington Post, Thomas Frank takes John McCain to task for his past history relating to, and espousing a philosophy at the root of this current financial crisis.
He presents his case in three phases:
1. Keating 5: McCain's role in the last financial debacle, the Savings and Loan Crisis, and his support for one of the biggest crooks in that crisis, Charles Keating.
2. Phil Gramm: Phil Gramm, McCain's confidant and most trusted advisor, whom he wants to appoint to head the Treasury, is the primary enabler of today's crisis, when he de-regulated Wall Street, with John McCain's support.
3. Wendy Gramm and Enron: Phil Gramm's wife, Wendy, was instrumental in setting up the scene for Enron to manipulate the energy markets, and the subsequent crisis across the country. Not to mention that Phil Gramm created the Enron loophole which his wife exploited, all with John McCain's support.
4. His other Advisors: John McCain's campaign bus is full of advisors who are fundamentally, 'de-regulators'.
An interesting article, and a must-read.
Wonder what all of the credit default waps that have been bringing our economy down ...
Please DIGG.com it or share it on one or more your favorite social media sites.
John McCain told the Wall Street Journal in November, 2007: "I'm going to be honest: I know a lot less about economics than I do about military and foreign policy issues. I still need to be educated." Ten months ago at the January 10, 2008 Republican Debate in Myrtle Beach, even Mitt Romney knew that the country was in trouble and headed for a recession if we didn't do something about the housing crisis and middle class tax breaks. But John McCain kept singing the song that the economy was fundamentally strong:
All six of the Republican presidential candidates were asked tonight whether they believe the U.S. economy is headed towards a recession, and whether the federal government should step in to help. “Could we be headed for a recession? Absolutely. Do we have to be headed for a recession? Absolutely not,” said Mitt Romney.The former Massachusetts governor said the “number one” thing the federal government has to do to help the economy is stop the housing crisis — although he did not lay out how that should be done. Romney also advocated for middle-class tax cuts, lowering gas prices in a broader effort to be energy independent, and making significant R&D investments in science and technology.Sen. John McCain disputed the suggestion. “I don’t believe we’re headed into a recession,” he said, “I believe the fundamentals of this economy are strong and I believe they will remain strong. This is a rough patch, but I think America’s greatness lies ahead of us.”The Arizona Senator argued reining in federal spending was the most fundamental thing the government could do. It’s “what caused interest rates to rise. It causes people to be less able to afford their own homes. We need to stop the spending and that way, we can get our budget under control and we can have basically a strong fundamental fiscal underpinning.” http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2008/01/10/are-we-headed-toward-a-recession/
All six of the Republican presidential candidates were asked tonight whether they believe the U.S. economy is headed towards a recession, and whether the federal government should step in to help.
“Could we be headed for a recession? Absolutely. Do we have to be headed for a recession? Absolutely not,” said Mitt Romney.
The former Massachusetts governor said the “number one” thing the federal government has to do to help the economy is stop the housing crisis — although he did not lay out how that should be done. Romney also advocated for middle-class tax cuts, lowering gas prices in a broader effort to be energy independent, and making significant R&D investments in science and technology.
Sen. John McCain disputed the suggestion. “I don’t believe we’re headed into a recession,” he said, “I believe the fundamentals of this economy are strong and I believe they will remain strong. This is a rough patch, but I think America’s greatness lies ahead of us.”
The Arizona Senator argued reining in federal spending was the most fundamental thing the government could do. It’s “what caused interest rates to rise. It causes people to be less able to afford their own homes. We need to stop the spending and that way, we can get our budget under control and we can have basically a strong fundamental fiscal underpinning.” http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2008/01/10/are-we-headed-toward-a-recession/
Now the Republican administration is proposing $1 Trillion of government spending to stop the economic crisis.
The Nation has an article by Mark Sumner about John McCain as a "Crisis Enabler" which every voter should read http://www.thenation.com/doc/20081006/sumner. It's conclusion says it all:
"It may come as a surprise to the champions of deregulation, but nobody likes regulation. The restrictions that were placed on banks, S&Ls and other institutions in the 1930s weren't put there because someone thought it would be fun. They were put in place because they addressed problems that had just been clearly and painfully revealed. They were put in place because they were necessary. It's bad enough if John McCain didn't know that. It's far worse if he did. "
"It may come as a surprise to the champions of deregulation, but nobody likes regulation. The restrictions that were placed on banks, S&Ls and other institutions in the 1930s weren't put there because someone thought it would be fun. They were put in place because they addressed problems that had just been clearly and painfully revealed. They were put in place because they were necessary.
It's bad enough if John McCain didn't know that. It's far worse if he did. "
To: Barack Obama, David Axelrod, and David Plouffe
Re: The Master Key to Unlock John McCain’s Campaign is Phil Gramm or
John McCain, Not the Man He Used To Be
Dear Senator Obama, David Axelrod, and David Plouffe
Your focus on their lobbyists is going in the right direction, but why not pinpoint on only one lobbyist per ad, such as Phil Gramm. You can show the actual and specific damage that a senator / lobbyist caused. I think it will make a more detailed compelling narrative that people can get their teeth into. A shopping list of obscure lobbyists doesn't really stir the soul. John Harwood of the New York Times made a very similar point the other day on MSNBC.
NEWS: Years before Phil Gramm was a McCain campaign adviser and a lobbyist for a Swiss bank at the center of the housing credit crisis, he pulled a sly maneuver in the Senate that helped create today's subprime meltdown.
Obama must hammer, hammer, hammer away at the McCain / Phil Gramm connection!!!!!!! McCain admitted in a Wall Street Journal interview that he did not understand economics and relies on Campaign Co-Chairman, Phil Gramm. McCain has called Phil Gramm an economics guru, and is likely to appoint Gramm as Secretary of the Treasury if he wins. But it was Phil Gramm that has done more to deregulate banks than anyone else, which is a significant reason for our current banking crisis. Gramm is also credited with the "Enron Loophole" while his wife (Wendy Gramm) was on the Board of Directors at Enron helping cover up their deception. After Gramm said we were a Nation of Whiners, he stepped away from his 'title' as Campaign Co-Chairman, but he is still there every step of the way. So I see McCain doing what Bush did - surround himself with 'loyalists' that are anything but loyal to the people. McCain needs Gramm, but none of us working-class Americans need Gramm. Do a search on "Phil Gramm banking deregulation" and you'll see why it is an issue. Sure, some of the results will be from 'left' sources - but not all of them. There are true Republican fiscal conservatives that blame Gramm for these problems.
Due to the Great Depression, the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933 was passed, creating the FDIC, and limiting the possible continued damage due to speculation and improper collusion of banks and investment houses. Interesting how issues with banks, investment firms, and speculation are rampant today, what with overinflated real estate and oil prices hurting us all.
In 1999 the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, introduced by Phil ("this is a nation of whiners") Gramm was passed in the U.S. Senate, with the sole purpose of repealing part of the Glass-Steagall Act. Which portion was repealed? Why, the portion that says bank holding companies (the companies that own banking companies) could not also own investment firms. Suddenly there was no longer conflict of interest? Why no, it's just that LOBBYISTS finally got their mojo to work!
So who voted in favor of the repealing? Why the Republicans in the Senate! Who voted against? Why, the Democrats! And there is one particularly important name amongst those Republicans that voted in favor -- JOHN MCCAIN!!! That's right, John McCain voted in favor of creating the very conditions that caused the financial mess we see today!
Don't take just my word for it! Visit here to see the vote! And visit http://www.newsweek.com/id/159334 to see the Newsweek editorial that links Gramm-Leach-Bliley to the problems we are facing today from the banking industry!
It's no wonder McCain has flipflopped on his earlier statements that he would never support more industry regulation, and supports this buyout -- he is trying to clean up HIS OWN MESS. Of course, he now says that the U.S. Government was "forced" to bail out AIG, shifting the blame from his own actions. Listen to me on this one -- when McCain says it is the fault of government that these business have failed, he is indicting HIMSELF.
The world is watching as America's financial system -- once the strongest in and the envy of the entire world -- is raped, pillaged and burned for the benefit of a wealthy, well-connected few, and to the detriment of tens of millions of average Americans just like you (unless you're a millionaire) and me.
Robert Creamer
Link: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-creamer/why-the-financial-meltdow_b_126802.html?view=print
Posted September 16, 2008
The financial meltdown on Wall Street is more than a cyclic correction brought on by a mismanaged business cycle. It is emblematic of a problem at the very foundation of the right wing economic philosophy that became conventional wisdom during the Bush years -- and would be continued in a McCain presidency.
The zealots of unfettered "free markets" cast aside the critical lesson that the world learned during the Great Depression: left to their own devices, unregulated financial markets do not necessarily function to benefit the society as a whole -- or, in the end, even many individual market participants.
The fundamental premise of right-wing economics is the incorrect view that if every market actor pursues his own economic interest, the "invisible hand" of the market place will assure that the "common good" results. But of course, common sense tells us that is not always true. Two quick examples: The first is referred to as the "tragedy of the commons." Suppose an island nation depends on the fishing harvests from the surrounding sea for its livelihood. It would obviously be in the interest of the community never to take more fish from the sea than can be replenished through the reproduction of fish. That way, everyone on the island will continue to have fish for the long haul.
But it is in the interest of each individual fisherman to catch as many fish as he can. This is especially true if the fish stocks grow scarcer. To continue to have enough fish for himself and his family, each fisherman competes more and more vigorously for the remaining fish. In the end, this behavior will assure that the fish supply is depleted, and that no one has any fish.
In this situation, if everyone pursues his own individual interest, the common good is not served. But if everyone looks out for each other, and recognizes that all have a common group interest, they will manage the fish resource to assure a self-sustaining fish supply that can feed everyone for years to come.
The other example is the classic case of economic recession. In a recession, it is in each economic actor's self-interest to increase his savings and cut spending, since the recession threatens his income. But by each pursuing his own individual interest, all of the actors together reduce the economy's overall spending. And that deepens the recession. If, on the other hand, the entire group of economic actors works through its government to increase national spending and reduce overall savings, it will stimulate the economy and the recession will end -- benefiting everyone.
The American mortgage market now provides us with another clear example of how this fundamental premise of right-wing economic thought is dead wrong.
For many years after the Great Depression, most mortgages were provided by banks and savings and loans. Traditionally these institutions would originate their own loans, evaluate the risk, and maintain a relationship with the borrower. It was in the self-interest of the institution to make loans -- that's how it made money. But it was also in the institution's interest to assure that the borrower could pay the loan back, because it was lending its own money.
Over the last thirty years, the mortgage market has fundamentally changed. Now most loans are originated by brokers or other mortgage companies who make their money through "origination fees" and often payments from big, unregulated lenders. Once these loans are made, they are then packaged and sold as securities through the secondary mortgage market.
Mortgage originators had every incentive to make all the loans they could, but absolutely no incentive to assure that the borrowers could pay the loans back. Credit standards were relaxed, new "sub prime" products were introduced, "no-document" loans were issued.
This system provided a great deal of liquidity to the mortgage industry. But it also removed the risk of making the loan from the loan originator and handed it to a huge, diffuse "market." No longer did any individual or institution have any individual incentive to prevent bad loans.
The problem was simultaneously hidden and exaggerated by the creation of complex derivatives -- securities that sliced and diced the risk and allowed it to be sold and resold.
As long as housing prices went up, the problem of bad loans were hidden by the rising equity of the collateral -- the homes that were being financed. But once prices stopped rising and began to drop, the bottom fell out.
Left to its own devices, the mortgage market itself could not solve this problem. It was in the loan originator's interest to issue more and more risky loans and it wasn't in the interest of any individual market player to control for risk, since the securities representing that risk could be sold a minute after they were purchased.
The only solution to this problem would have been the kind of regulation that was put into place for banks during the New Deal. With banks and with savings and loans, regulators guarantee a substantial portion of the depositor's money, but they also ensure that the mix of loans and the bank's overall financial structure is sound. Today the major source of mortgage capital is not banks or savings and loans, but from financial institutions that are almost free of regulation.
The same went for the two institutions that were set up to create this "secondary mortgage market," Fanny Mae and Freddie Mac, before they were taken over by the government last week.
The kind of regulation that was necessary was opposed by the Bush administration -- and the entire right wing business and economic establishment -- that is trying desperately to hold onto power by electing John McCain to continue the Bush presidency.
So now the chickens are coming home to roost. The taxpayers are helping to bail out some of the players, the stock market is tanking, mortgages are harder to get -- further reducing home values and making the problem worse.
And unbelievably, John McCain told his audience that he would "clean up Wall Street."
John McCain's chief economic adviser is Phil Gramm -- a former economics professor -- who is now Vice Chair of UBS, a huge international financial company. He's the guy who said that the problems of the American economy were "in the minds" of the American people -- that we are "a nation of whiners." Gramm is an ardent advocate of precisely the right wing economic philosophy that caused this problem in the first place.
Gramm and McCain believe in letting the guys with all the money do pretty much what they want because, they say, it will ultimately benefit us all. They are the ultimate crusaders for "trickle down economics."
The problem is that the foundational principles of this economic view have been proven wrong by history. And after a while, the victims are no longer limited to the vast majority of Americans that has suffered for the last eight years -- the pain even spreads to the wealthiest denizens of Wall Street. As Barack Obama said yesterday, we hear a lot about the benefits of the economy "trickling down;" now we're beginning to see the pain of the economy "trickle up."
The central lesson of this saga is clear. If you like the Bush economy, hire McCain. Over the next seven weeks, however, Americans who care about our economic future have to join Barack Obama in saying: enough.
Robert Creamer is a long-time organizer and political strategist, and the author of the recent book "Stand Up Straight: How Progressives Can Win," available at amazon.com
As the markets spin out of control, with wild swings based on calamitous events such as Countrywide, MBIA, Ambac, Bear Stearnes, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, IndyMac, Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch and AIG, why do many insist that Bush’s administration, or his party’s nominee, John McCain, have gotten anything right at all?
John McCain’s former top economic advisor, ex-U.S. Senator Phil Gramm of Texas, had a primary hand in the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act of 1999 that eliminated the firewall protections made by the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933 between investment, commercial banking, and insurance services during the Great Depression when so many banks failed. As a result of this deregulation, we are now seeing the enormous problems of integrated services spread like a plague throughout the market as many of these financial players mixed investments and savings and high-risk loans together and across various business entities.
McCain’s economic proclamations and company kept should be an albatross around his neck. You cannot expect change from a man that hires people that called Americans, “a nation of whiners,” during an economic crisis of their making. Meaning: Phil Gramm had his hand in your misery and now blames you for it.
Phil Gramm continues to be major cog in McCain’s campaign.
How is that change we can believe in?
Two very interesting articles:
An article by James K. Galbraith that talks about speculation and the Enron loophole that McCain's advisor Phill Gramm was instrumental in creating and maintaining:
http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/2008/09/exit-strategy-how-to-burn-the-speculators.html
An essay on the role of Media and speculative volatility:
http://seekingalpha.com/article/95304-selling-short-america-and-the-rest-of-the-world
For all the effort the people at Politico.com have put into establishing their credibility as a viable news source, one of today's showcase articles diminishes those accomplishments. McCain calls lobbyists 'birds of prey' is billed as an interview in which "McCain vows a lifetime ban on lobbying for members of his administration."
For me, as a curmudgeonly media critic, the words in that article fell short of deserving the promotion it got as the results of an interview. It really seems more like a case of two reporters taking dictation from a crafty politician... reporters barely able to ask a question unless it was an invitation for John McCain to read stump speech talking points from his notes. Why send reporters to such an opportunity when a stenographer could have collected what readers got?
I'm not sure if it ever really existed in reality.
But the party of the right sure has been making it a lot easier for the opposition to paint them as detached and uncaring lately.
Last week, John McCain's top economic advisor, Phil Gramm, called the country with the highest worker productivity in the world "a nation of whiners" (that's America, by the way).
Phil Gramm is both an economist and a politician, so he should know better than to say something like this in front of cameras and microphones.
Like President Bush tried to do yesterday...
Unaware he was being recorded, President Bush at a Houston fundraiser last week compared Wall Street to a drunk with a hangover and cracked jokes about the ailing housing market. "There's no question about it. Wall Street got drunk — that's one of the reasons I asked you to turn off the TV cameras — it got drunk and now it's got a hangover," Bush said at a private fundraiser for Republican congressional candidate Pete Olson.
"The question is: How long will it sober up and not try to do all these fancy financial instruments?"
I would be the last person in the world to argue that economics or financial analysis are an exact science but you can't dismiss "fancy financial instruments" when hard-working people are hurting as a result of economic factors beyond their control
So it's not surprising then that they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them.
Strike that last part.
--and this man would be Treasury Secretary if McCain wins
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=064C5UrRfP4
