After wondering for days where the cool mornings the weather prognosticators kept telling me about were hiding, they arrived this morning. As a native to this climate in SE Texas, I am always amazed to hear these same prognosticators (most of whom arrived from climes much closer to the poles) speak with great enthusiasm about our “wonderful fall weather” when the daily highs are hitting the upper 80’s. Now I know I am showing my age, but, I recall the September evenings of my youth when the neighborhood football games always left your throat a little raw from the ool dry air (then again…it ould just have been the fumes from the paper mill on the ship channel).
I see the man who was taking all the credit for the bailout on Sunday and Monday Morning is now blaming his opposition on the failure to pass a bill he now says was flawed…
John McCain blamed Barack Obama and the Democrats for Congress‘ failure to pass a $700 billion Wall Street bailout on Monday, while Obama avoided blame games and instead implored Americans to “stay calm.”
McCain appeared before the news media in Iowa and said: “Our leaders are expected to leave partisanship at the door and come to the table to solve our problems. Senator Obama and his allies in Congress infused unnecessary partisanship in the process.”
In fact, Democrats in the House of Representatives mustered 140 votes for the compromise bailout plan drafted by lawmakers from both parties and the Bush administration, while Republicans delivered only 65 votes. Some 133 House Republicans opposed it, as did 95 Democrats.
“No one person is at fault in this crisis; there’s a lot of blame to spread around,” Obama told a rally at a high school outside Denver after the House vote.
McCain blames Dems; Obama calls for calm (w/video) | National | Chron.com – Houston Chronicle.
…It all sounds a little partisan to me. But really, what do I know about anything. I’m just a partisan hack myself.
Is it just me, or, does anyone else find this really troubling…
NEW YORK — The sale of Wachovia’s deposits and other assets to Citigroup on Monday leaves the nation with three superbanks, reshaping the U.S. banking landscape in the midst of unprecedented financial upheaval.
For customers of those institutions — Bank of America, Citigroup and JPMorgan Chase — the consolidation may result in higher fees on everything from checking accounts to bounced checks and overdrafts, and lower interest-rate yields on deposit accounts, banking experts said.
3 giants now tower over U.S. banking scene | Business | Chron.com – Houston Chronicle.
Will we never learn our lesson? Putting all of your eggs in one basket (or three) is just tempting the fates way too much.
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“No one person is at fault in this crisis; there’s a lot of blame to spread around,” – Obama
This is how Democrats phrase problems that they are primarily responsible for – oh others did it so whatever… Democrats=government regulation, and that is what started the current financial crisis.
And finally, Obama comes out of hiding and gives a speech on the financial crisis. Where’s he been? I don’t want a leader who is so unprepared as to respond so late in the game. What was his message? He said he would implement, “rules that will make sure Wall Street can never get away with the stunts that cause this crisis again.”
Let me get this straight, so McCain tries to reform Freddie/Fannie back in 2005 with Senate bill 190 which the Democrats kill in committee, yet Obama is all of a sudden going to change things with his “rules”? And the documented involvement of Obama pushing for more subprime lending regardless of ability to pay resulting in this catastrophe is just him saying “everyone” is to blame? No thanks, I think I’ll vote for the non-corrupt candidate.
Lastly, you shouldn’t worry about bank consolidation – the US has too many banks as it is. There are so many solid local banks ready to do business right now.
Jim, do you live in the same world I do?
Democrats have never been for deregulation…and that is the primary cause of our current financial crisis, lack of regulation and non-enforcement of the regulations we do have. Led in many instances in the last 20 years by politicians from my own state…Really makes me proud…Not.
So you want a leader who takes credit for something he didn’t accomplish…again? You and your complaints about regulations., do you really beleive that by relaxing the rules you will solve this crisis?
And from the synopsis on SB190, which was killed when Republicans ran the Senate (remember that?), McCain didn’t sign on until 2o06 after it was already dead and buried by the Republican Leadership…Who was late in that game? When the bill was introduced in January of 2005 it had three sponsors and not one of them was named McCain. The first time McCain has anything to say is May 25th 2006, a year and a half later…really leading don’t you think?
Where is your documented involvement? Happy hunting for your non-corrupt candidate…by your definition of corrupt you’ll be looking a really long time.
And, Jim, in case you haven’t noticed yet, I always worry when corporations consolidate their market share. I prefer lots of competition and local choices…In my food, in my shopping, and in my news.
“I prefer lots of competition ” – Gary
Then you should support free markets, not Government regulation.
Do I live in the real world? Last I checked, the world I live in shows 2005 and 2006 preceded 2008, so yes, McCain was a leader challenging the risk structure of Agency debt, yet we hear nothing from Obama. Oh wait, we do, it’s in the form of money skimmed from the very government agencies he refused to regulate.
You can regulate a corrupt system like the government agencies Freddie and Fannie all you want and you will still get disastrous results. We see Obama pleading with Congress to support the bailout today, even after he admits that he doesn’t know how the crisis all got started (do you believe him?), and he acknowledges that his party is to blame and that there is no guarantee that the taxpayers acquisition of bad debt will pay off in the future.
To top it off, both parties want to add unrelated perks to the bailout bill. I’m all against taxes, particularly the AMT, but this is not the place for its consideration. Likewise, hurricane victims should be addressed separately. Politicians, you just can’t trust them.
As for the proof that Obama supported subprime lending, here is just one of the many sources:
http://noquarterusa.net/blog/2008/09/27/consumer-rights-league-obama-acorn-and-the-subprime-mortgage/
Basically, Obama championed CRA lending and represented, adopted, and trained ACORN groups which required mandatory lending in areas where credit problems ran amuck. Some ACORN members were recently indicted on the charge of registering fake voters including at least one dead person, and in the past there have been about a score of other convictions ranging from embezzlement to extortion. ACORN has endorsed Obama – what a shock.
Hey Jim, just because I prefer lots of competition doesn’t require that I believe we don’t need regulation. Lack of regulations don’t equate to free markets, they just mean you have anarchy.
My reference to 2006 seems to have been lost on you…The bill you quoted was all but dead when McCain decided to cosponsor it 18 months after it was originally proposed. And nothing after that point shows up in the record…So he wasn’t to passionate about the issue. Would you like to discuss McCain’s selling of the Iraq war? That’s another financial crisis coming home to roost.
My question didn’t have anything to do with whether you live in the real world or not, just if we live in the same world. In my world Republicans have been in power in Congress for ten of the last twelve years. And have exercised total control over the government for six of the last eight. In all of those years they have legislated tax cuts and deregulation. We are now just beginning to see the results of those short sighted policies. Personally, living in a deregulated energy state means I pay more than 90% of America for my electricity…Even though it doen’t cost any more to produce…But deregulation is always good, right?
As for your statements about Freddie and Fannie, it seems to me that as long as they were government agencies everything worked pretty good. It was only when the were privatized (without privatizing the risk) that the problems started. And the downfall was the relaxation of the rules that had protected the governments interests from the beginning…
If you really read the background and not just the one-sided propaganda on the right-wing media, you will find that those agencies were started in answer to abuses in the Banking Industry. By using Obama’s baking of this policy you are saying I should use McCain’s Keating Policy to judge everything he has done in public life? I should base my opinion of McCain on his campaigns base of lobbyist (particularly for Fannie and Freddie) staffers?
And now we start the voter fraud stories…Let’s just put the Gestapo (my bad, I meant Blackwater) in charge of polling place security…