Today's news that AIG has been taken over by the federal government for $85 billion dollars could be the straw that breaks John McCain's back. If, and only if, Obama hits the message home in real time and doesn't let up until November 4th.
McCain, a champion of deregulation in the Senate, former Commerce Committee Chair, has taken an abrupt about face on the economy after yesterday's suicide mission in which he called the fundamentals of the economy strong.
In that one statement, then the support of regulation of finance, McCain has demonstrated that he is right. He doesn't know much about the economy. The late Tim Russert brought that out on Meet the Press not long ago.
If this is the moment Obama has been waiting for and he stays on message, he will win the election.
There is no easier target than a presidential campaign that was on the uptick then self-destructs. McCain now looks out of touch with the concerns of ordinary Americans, who are legitimately worried about their 401Ks and investments. McCain also looks out of touch with the thousands of people walking away from the buildings they worked at in Manhattan with no jobs and no clear future.
McCain is in a corner, one he can tactically be kept in quite easily for 6 weeks. All Obama-Biden have to do now is talk about the banking crisis and the change in position of former deregulation champion John McCain. Oh, and by the way, who favors deregulation? Oh yeah. The lobbyists.
Surely someone who was a target of the Keating 5 investigation understands this. Remember that one in the early nineties, when McCain helped a banking mogul who was lobbying him to de-regulate the S&L's?
Anyone?
Anyone?
Do you just not understand free-enterprise? With it comes great reward, but also great risk.
Those finance companies that got too greedy, lent money to those that wouldn't / couldn't pay it back (stupid adjustable rates) deserve to crash and go out of business. Let the wiser, better company buy them cheap and rebuild the accounts on solid financial investment.
More government = more mess.
Sorry you are so bitter and have lost your objectivity.
The debt is the only thing socialized.
What's needed is a reckoning.
A key figure of the Savings and Loan scandal will only work to reset the tale for another disaster two decades from now - an unfortunate consequence of not nailing him to the wall when we had the opportunity.
Regulation would have prevented the companies from bundling those loans nd understating the risk when they were sent out to the open market.
It becomes a free market when the taxpayers have to bail them out every 15 years...as we did with the S&L debacle.
And Johnny Mac crashed that jet too (6 total if you're keeping score)
Now that deregulation has enabled banks (insured by the FDIC) to buy failed investment firms that weren't insured by the FDIC, that burden has now been shifted to...TAXPAYERS!
Your free enterprise lives becuse you've gerry-rigged the system. The investment firms that failed still paid out the execs, though. Probably softened the blow for the major investors for good measure.
I don't know what American Way that is, perhaps you could elaborate for us.
Regulation is legally allowed at the state level. The feds are only supposed to step in when the regulations become oppressive or harmful.
This problem will not be fixed with more regulation at the federal level. It will only be worsened, if it's possible for things to get worse.
We have seen one communist and dictator run country fail after another. They only got better when they began to deregulate.
McCain should never had had an opening (in time) to appropriate a position on the economic melt-down which was not his position. With all the lies and half-truths which had been spun and spread by McCain 527s' ads and vacuous sensationalist media, the Obama camp should have been quick to step into the arena with the specific substantive responses that he has always had. This election should not go down in history as "The Biggest Steal" or "Stealthiest Subversion of the Middle American Mind" in American politics.
$66 million in 1 month....
"McCAIN 2008 -PALIN: LIE WITHOUT BLINKING! Vote DEMOCRAT for AFFORDABLE HEALTH CARE, WOMEN'S CHOICE, VETS BENEFITS, EQUAL PAY".
The lenders didn't care, who then sold the poison loans to others. In many cases, they were sold to us with our retirement savings, or to States, or cities, or other bewildered entidies.
It was a Republican scheme, and now the chickens have come home to roost. Top Chicken, McCain, is trying to bait and switch one more time, and say it is the fault of others. I wonder how McCain voted that night. He certainly has voted against oversight many times, and if he was there I am sure he voted for this himself. Does anyone have the Congressional record?
To the person "approving" these posts: WHAT IS WRONG WITH ALLOWING THAT FACT TO BE KNOWN?
Anything?
Every taxpayer in the country should be outraged that this is happening again. Proof that deregulation (supported whole heartedly by McCain) doesn't work. Why should U.S. taxpayers be forced to spend their hard-earned money to pay the price for corporate greed?
A Senior Womans Group
Keating 5, Keating 5, Keating 5.....................