The Obama campaign says that a failed economic philosophy, to which Sen. McCain subscribes, is to blame for the current economic troubles. He doesn’t put it this way, but the shorter version is that unregulated, trickle down, crony capitalism doesn’t work. There is a reason that FDR felt compelled to impose oversight over financial institutions during the New Deal. The cycle of boom & crash that comes with no oversight isn’t a great way to run an economy. Anyway, Obama:
This morning we woke up to some very serious and troubling news from Wall Street.
The situation with Lehman Brothers and other financial institutions is the latest in a wave of crises that are generating enormous uncertainty about the future of our financial markets. This turmoil is a major threat to our economy and its ability to create good-paying jobs and help working Americans pay their bills, save for their future, and make their mortgage payments.
The challenges facing our financial system today are more evidence that too many folks in Washington and on Wall Street weren’t minding the store. Eight years of policies that have shredded consumer protections, loosened oversight and regulation, and encouraged outsized bonuses to CEOs while ignoring middle-class Americans have brought us to the most serious financial crisis since the Great Depression.
I certainly don’t fault Senator McCain for these problems, but I do fault the economic philosophy he subscribes to. It’s a philosophy we’ve had for the last eight years – one that says we should give more and more to those with the most and hope that prosperity trickles down to everyone else. It’s a philosophy that says even common-sense regulations are unnecessary and unwise, and one that says we should just stick our heads in the sand and ignore economic problems until they spiral into crises.
Well now, instead of prosperity trickling down, the pain has trickled up – from the struggles of hardworking Americans on Main Street to the largest firms of Wall Street.
This country can’t afford another four years of this failed philosophy. For years, I have consistently called for modernizing the rules of the road to suit a 21st century market – rules that would protect American investors and consumers. And I’ve called for policies that grow our economy and our middle-class together. That is the change I am calling for in this campaign, and that is the change I will bring as President.
McCain continues to insist that the economy is essentially fine. I guess whether it is or isn’t depends on your situation. If, just to pick an example at random, you married into a recession-proof alcohol fortune; the economy probably doesn’t look all that bad.
If Obama doesn’t want “crony capitalism” like Clinton, Bush, and especially the recent Congresses, then what is he advocating? If he wants a lot of govt intervention– without the cronyism (good luck with that, by the way)– then we’re looking at socialism straight up then, right?
Aside from rhetoric, what does Obama mean here– in a positive sense? Or more broadly: We know he wants change, but what does that mean?
I’m not a financial expert, so I can only guess. But, at a minimum, I suspect a Democratic administration would have its regulators watching the financial institutions closely and enforce regulations when they saw violations. I think there has been a hands off, look the other way approach during the current administration, just as a matter of underlying philosophy. “The markets can do no wrong.”
But, I think history has shown that unregulated markets have a tendency to boom and crash which, over the long haul, might end up getting you to reasonably good places, but can be awfully hard for ordinary people to weather.
As for socialism, I think we’re already there: Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, bailouts of large financial institutions. The remaining question is how much. “We’ve already established what you are, ma’am, now we’re just haggling over the price.”
As I recall, it was President Clinton who signed the banking deregulation legislation back in 1999. He also signed the telecom deregulation bill which has just done wonders to eliminate competition. And he signed the commodoties modernization act which led to Enron. Obama was just a little-known Chicago state senator voting present a lot, lobbying for government housing funds for his good buddy Rezko, who turned all of his housing projects into total dumps, and shaking down government decision-makers to hand out more minority contracts to his friends.
Wow.. it’s taken this long for the concern troll to jump to this site. Congrats, Doug! That must mean that you’re having some influence in this state. Keep up the good work!
He was voting present “a lot”. What percentage of his votes were “present”? I’ve heard a few dozen of his thousands of votes were “present”. McCain’s been absent from many multiples of that number just this year. Other than that, I see your point, Gary.
President Clinton’s not running for anything.
Phil Gramm championed a lot of that legislation while he and his wife went in and out of the corporate board revolving doors in places like Enron. Luckily, he’s nowhere near this campaign, except as the major economics advisor to the McCain campaign.
You notice that the first words out of the mouths of trolls are “socialism” when the economy is mentioned, and “Rezko” when Obama is brought up (not by the post, but by the troll itself).
Yeah, they’ve run out of anything meaningful. Best to just coast on through to November without fear of them.
The word ‘socialism’ doesn’t frighten me. Humans are a social species; trolls less so.
T, don’t forget that McCain was unable to be present when he was in the POW camp. Take it easy on him.
McCain was a POW?
Was that before or after he invented the Blackberry?