When Phil Gramm called America a "nation of whiners" for not loving the economy, I said: "This is does not make Gramm uniquely callous. It just makes him a conservative." Gramm was merely echoing documented and widespread sentiment among conservative leaders -- that if you feel the economy isn't working for you, then you're wrong.
Today in St. Paul, where conservatives are gathered for the Republican National Convention, Gramm wanted to make sure you heard him right. Bloomberg (via ThinkProgress) reports:
"If you're sitting here today, you're not economically illiterate and you're not a whiner, so I'm not worried about who you're going to vote for,'' Gramm told supporters of McCain at a Financial Services Roundtable event in Minneapolis on the sidelines of the Republican National Convention.
Putting the politics of the presidential campaign aside, exactly who was Gramm talking to at a "Financial Services Roundtable event?"
As The Financial Services Roundtable describes itself:
The Financial Services Roundtable represents 100 of the largest integrated financial services companies providing banking, insurance, and investment products and services to the American consumer. Member companies participate through the Chief Executive Officer and other senior executives nominated by the CEO.
Literally, the CEOs of the nation's top financial services companies and their representatives.
So to translate Gramm-speak, if you are a CEO of corporations such as Allstate, Bank of America, Capital One, Charles Schwab, Citigroup, Countrywide, Fidelity Investments, General Electric, JPMorganChase, Visa, Wachovia or another of the top 100 financial services companies, then you are "not economically illiterate and you're not a whiner."
Never mind that several of those "economically literate" CEOs are directly responsible for the current housing and credit crisis.
But Gramm is at least right that these CEOs are not whining. Why would they? They are doing quite well, after taking advantage of conservative economic policies to line their pockets while the American economy turns to rubble.
As for those in the 99.999999% of the country -- who are not part of the Financial Services Roundtable and who are trapped under the economic rubble -- Phil Gramm still speaks for conservatism when he tells you to shut up.
While Gramm is speaking for conservatives, we at Campaign for America's Future are speaking to conservatives. Check out our new ad below, which is greeting conservative delegates in their St. Paul hotel rooms this week.
And if Phil Gramm wants to call us whiners for reminding them about the damage inflicted on Americans by their policies, then we'll just whine louder.
Originally posted at OurFuture.org
Follow Bill Scher on Twitter: www.twitter.com/billscher
http://finance.yahoo.com/echarts?s=UBS#chart1:symbol=ubs;range=1y;indicator=volume;charttype=line;crosshair=on;ohlcvalues=0;logscale=on;source=undefined
Yes, there are certainly wealthy Democrats, but they always manage to at least recognize the pain of the poor and less affluent and make some attempt to help. As Barack Obama put it so well in his acceptance speech last week, the Republican "ownership society" means you're "on your own." Mr. Gramm is simply spewing the party line. And these above-it-all, filthy-rich people have the nerve to call Democrats elitist!
By his own admission, John McCain has little interest in economic matters and as president would leave all that annoying stuff in the compassionate hands of people who think like Phil Gramm. R.I.P the American middle class; it will vanish like a fog, having successfully voted against its own best interests by putting the Bushes and McCains in office. Which would you rather have? Tax and spend Democrats or non-tax and spend Republicans?
The difference between a liberal and a conservative is the liberal believes in community. That the system set up for the community to function should help the whole community, not just the wealthy few. The growth in wealth of the top 1% of the community has been great in the conservative's view. So why worry about the other 99%. As Mr. Obama said in his speech: You're on your own.
In the conservative view this big divide between the top 1% of wealthy Americans and average Americans is not seen as a bad thing by conservatives. It is ok because the average American is not as deserving as the wealthy American. People should ignore that it is the direct result of the tax policies pushed by the conservative ideologues of the Republican party.
Liberals do not see this big divide as a good thing. They believe that whatever economic engine is setup the whole community should benefit.
European countries and Canada that have setup systems that help the whole community are label socialist. They have system set up that allows individual achievement, but is conscious of community. The system should help the entire community.
Phil Gramm is conservatism. He does not value the community.
And that man is the economic advisor to the presidential candidate who admits that he doesn't understand how the american economy works (Arizona, what were you thinking!)
Let's see.... who do I want making decisions about the financial future of this country... hmmmm....
Senator Obama and Joe Biden will tell us the truth about where things stand and what we have to do to get things moving in a healthy direction.
But again, I am very fearful that McCain will pull another Bush election off...you know, not enough polling machines, fiddle with the computers, fiddle with the judiciary and there you go, another 4 years of the same old stuff in the White House, hardly even musical chairs...Palin does have more experience in politics than Bush ever had...
Obama, on the other hand, has been working for progressives since he graduated from college and knows what has been done to the working class...
As an aside, Gramm's Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act created the Financial Services entities described above ... in other words, with out Phil Gramm there wouldn't be The Financial Services Roundtable.
His deregulation Enron Loophole has deeper effects then just the elimination of Oil Futures Trading oversight.
The Hedge Funds are raiding business coffiers of profits too so stock lose value.
Conservastive are screwin themselves voting for these Right Wing idoits causing so much turmoil in the market just to make a profit selling short all the time.