“The last six months, during which the SEC and the Federal Reserve have worked collaboratively with each of the firms pursuant to our memorandum of understanding — have made abundantly clear that voluntary regulation doesn’t work,”
-SEC Chairman Christopher Cox in prepared testimony at a Senate Banking Committee hearing.
It was interesting to see yesterday Barack Obama attacking not John McCain or Republicans but movement conservatism itself.
"[T]oo many folks in Washington and on Wall Street weren't minding the store," Obama said. "For eight years, we've had policies that have shredded consumer protections, loosened oversight and regulation, and encouraged outsized bonuses to CEOs while ignoring middle-class Americans. The result is the most serious financial crisis since the Great Depression.
"I certainly don't fault Senator John McCain for these problems, but I do fault the economic philosophy he subscribes to. It's the same 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; one that says we should just stick our heads in the sand and ignore economic problems until they spiral into crises."
The banking crisis at hand really IS the worst bank crisis since the Great Depression. And it really is the result of thirty years of "reform" that movement conservatism brought to the US banking system--reducing reserve requirements for commercial banks by allowing them to carry more and more off balance sheet, undoing Steigel-Glass to allow more and more leveraged investing in the banking system, allowing the system to "self-regulate" through bond ratings agencies who, instead of regulating, were paid to tell their clients what those clients wanted to hear.
We're watching thirty years of borrowed boom coming to a crashing halt. It's the complete deleveraging of a supply-side driven boom snapping back like mouse trap.
Obama has been looking for an way to put John McCain on the defensive and recapture the high ground in this election and the banking crisis has presented him a unique opportunity--a moment when this wonky but crucial disaster is tangible to voters.
It's an area where Obama has been in front of the competition anyway. His speech following the Bear Stearns bail out was dead on the mark with regard to where the problems and solutions lay while his competitors were still talking subprime mortgages. And politically Obama needs to put McCain on the defensive about something more substantive than computer usage and campaign ads.
It's time for Obama to deliver a speech (it's still his political strong suit) explicitly attacking conservatism--tying conservative economics (fairly btw) to lost jobs, shrinking wages, retirement insecurity, and banking collapse--and offering New Deal--a package of policies designed to secure the American dream, where the gov't is a partner will the people not the enemy.
I know Barack is a student of great political speeches.... I hope he's got FDR's first inaugural at hand on the campaign plane.
More stuff on Sarah Palin. Apparently as Mayor of Wasilla she fired the local librarian after the librarian refused to ban books she found objectionable. The termination letter was recinded after a community uprising. From The New York Times:
Ann Kilkenny, a Democrat who said she attended every City Council meeting in Ms. Palin’s first year in office, said Ms. Palin brought up the idea of banning some books at one meeting. “They were somehow morally or socially objectionable to her,” Ms. Kilkenny said.
The librarian, Mary Ellen Emmons, pledged to “resist all efforts at censorship,” Ms. Kilkenny recalled. Ms. Palin fired Ms. Emmons shortly after taking office but changed course after residents made a strong show of support. Ms. Emmons, who left her job and Wasilla a couple of years later, declined to comment for this article.
Nice of John McCain to select a book banner to be our next Vice President.... How bad was John McCain's vetting process? Well according to the Washington Post the vetting team didn't interview her until the day before she was offered the job. Furthermore instead of hiring instigators the McCain camp asked the FBI to do background checks McCain's short-listers. Naturally the FBI refused to perform background checks on behalf of a political candidate.
All of this is not to mention the stuff that folks are dredging up on the Net--like the librarian firing--or from local contemporarneous press accounts. It's like the vetting team didn't even do a Google search!
Before anyone gets too serious about advancing the idea that Gov. Sarah Palin as GOP VP candidate will appeal to Hillary Clinton voters, those voters should understand that Palin is a standard bearer of the Christian Right--opposed to abortion and stem cell research, favoring the teaching of creationism in schools, and supporting a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage. (She is also opposed to state benefits for same-sex partners though she signed a law creating those benefits in Alaska under protest after her AG told her it was a matter of state constitutionality.)
On the environment she sued the Dept. of the Interior to keep polar bears off the endangered species list (she'd rather protect oil and gas development in Alaska) and is an ardent advocate for oil drilling in ANWAR, which even John McCain opposes.
On Iraq, Afghanistan, Georgia, or combating Al Qaeda she has no known opinion and didn't mention any of these issues in her appearance with John McCain today. On social security she has no know opinion but as a self professed laissez-faire market conservative can be expected her to adhere to a conservative orthodoxy that favors privatization.
As a matter of identity politics Palin is an interesting choice--she's a telegenic woman, comfortable with an audience, and will certainly appeal to conservative Republican female voters particularly in the West where her outdoors-woman personality will resonate profoundly. To the extent that she can close McCain's gender gap by attracting more conservative women to the polls in states like CO, NM, MT, VA, and NV, she could have an impact on the election, turning it from a map-changing race into a more familiar red state/blue state battle for OH. But make no mistake about it, Palin's represents nothing more than a fresh face for a familiar ideology that has long since turned rancid.
Her selection marks a familiar GOP tactic. Just as George W. Bush sold himself as a "compassionate conservative," sugar-coating for electoral consumption a pure Christian agenda and masking a governing philosophy that amounted to nothing more than a tilting of economic regulation and tax policy towards the wealthiest and most connected, so too Palin's fresh, down-home, attractive appeal does nothing more than put a new face on the same old ideas the GOP has been shoving down the nation's throat for a generation.
The choice in this election is actually clearer than ever. Change or more of the worst kind of right wing garbage.