Is John McCain Living in a Parallel Universe?

After getting up at the crack of dawn today, I saw the headlines about Lehman, Merrill Lynch and AIG. Of course, we had a feeling news was coming of an economic meltdown after what happened with Fannie and Freddie, as well as Bear Stearns.

But when I heard this statement from John McCain, I had to wonder, "Which one of us is living in a delusional parallel universe?"

Our economic fundamentals are sound? I'm not sure what "fundamentals" he's talking about, but I do know this -- just because you say the sky is green doesn't make it green. But I guess McCain thinks if he and his surrogates say it enough, we'll believe it, even though I can hear squeaky bed springs all around the country as people are taking their money and stashing it under their mattresses.

Lots of pundits are attributing our economic problems to the sub-prime mortgage crisis. But I say it's more than that.

After spending over six years as an attorney at the Securities and Exchange Commission in the late '90s and a little beyond, I can tell you that no matter what kind of leash, and no matter how slack that leash was that regulators tried to put on the banking and investment world, lobbyists and corporations won out more often than not. Yes, there are plenty of rules and guidelines on the books, but if they're watered down and the agencies tasked with enforcing them don't get the money for enough staff to be real watchdogs, then nothing will change to protect our bank accounts, our investment portfolios or our home mortgages.

Corporate cries of, "The expense of the regulation will be too costly and hurt investors!", and "Free markets are the best regulation!" won out time and again over the stories of investor after investor who had lost their savings precisely because there wasn't enough timely oversight.

Those who managed large institutional interests too often were more Gordon Gekko than the Geico gecko.

As far as I can tell, we're not going to be helped by the political rose-colored glasses McCain and his people seem to have slipped on. They might make things look good in the parallel economic universe he's made for himself where he thinks all families look like his, with the cushion of millions of dollars in trust money he can comfortably sit on.

But for the rest of us, who are worried about whether banks are going to go under and whether the money we were all told would be safe in our long-term investments really will be, someone better find a way pretty fast to deal with that's going on in this financial universe. No matter how cute or savvy that gecko is, he can't solve all our money problems.

Follow Joanne Bamberger on Twitter: www.twitter.com/PunditMom

Comments

[alvdh1]

Yes he is: In his universe up is down, bad is good, lies are truths, evil is evil if it is a Democrat.

[DallasMike]

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9E06E3D6123BF932A2575AC0A9659C8B63&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=print

Before you pass judgement why don't you read this.

[hchriste]

America better wake up. John McCain is bad for America, he is part of the problem now as he was in the past with being censered by the Senate for the Savings and Loan scandal ( the cost still not paid off) and now his economic plan could be best described as a mistake. With the National Debt as it is, we are in real danger of economic collapse within ten years and if we keep lowering the prime interest rate we could make U.S. Bonds a poor investment and speed up the process of collapse . Far worse for our National security, more so then all the terriorists combined, is the threat of ecomonic collapse due to the rapidlly increasing National Debt, which could lead to loss of our country as we now know it.

[heal57]

McCain has nine houses. His wife is worth over $100 million dollars. They have a private jet. His fundamentals are just fine, but yours and mine are not. If I hear one mor super wealthy republican [like Phil Graham] say that we Amerians are whining, I'm going to send him 50 lbs of moose stew from Alaska, and it won't be frozen.

[SeriousBlack]

"Is John McCain Living in a Parallel Universe?"

No, he's living in the conservative/Republican universe, in which 1 or 2 percent of the population have all the wealth, living in their gated, heliported and heavily-armed-Halliburton-thugs-manning-the-walls communities while everyone else lives in poverty and misery.

[Chewelahboy]

What can he (McCain) say on the subject of the economy that's grounded in reality?

Hey, vote for me, my economic policies are the same as those that have brought us to the brink of another Great Depression.

McCain can not win a contest where the economy is the issue. Let me rephrase that, he should not win a contest where the issue is the economy.

To date the Democrats have shown no indication that they will put this contest away. That's even more of a concern for me.

[cylindar]

Fact is that if anyone listens to McCain they deserve exactly what they get. McCain is off his meds more than he is on them, and this should be obvious to most people. Anything McCain says should not be considered as serious, ditto for Bush.

[NounverbPOW]

Problem is that if enough people listen to McCain, ALL of us get what they get....

[Zingaro Zorro]

McCains Neandercon Navy is a parallet universe for false heroes and failed students of econimics.

[mmerose]

Not just McCain, but the entire Repub. parade are certainly acting as if in a parallel universe. Never mind that special McCain guru Phil Gramm was instrumental in deregulating, here's Carly Fiorina with David Gregory on MSNBC today bemoaning the lack of regulation that facilitated the New Robber Barons. (my title)Something like 15 minutes ago she would have been bullhorning the anti-reg slogans you mention.

At the crackpot grassroots level, which unfortunately for me includes most of my close relatives, all they hear after years of talk radio brainwashing is "......Marxist.....noun.........verb....Marxist....Marxist....Obama....Marxist...." sort of like the dog cartoon where all the dog hears is his name. These people plus a few well-placed dirty tricks= President John McCain.