Ouch
Anonymous Liberal manages to pretty much sum up my feelings about McCain’s economic thinking and trillion dollar bailouts for investment bankers in one post. So I’ll just excerpt it in its entirety:
In a rational universe, this single paragraph would be the nail in the coffin of John McCain’s candidacy:
Opening up the health insurance market to more vigorous nationwide competition, as we have done over the last decade in banking, would provide more choices of innovative products less burdened by the worst excesses of state-based regulation.
That comes from a column in this month’s Contingencies magazine. The author: John McCain.
Think about what he’s saying here. He’s praising the deregulation of the banking industry over the last decade, specifically the way it led to a lot of “innovative products.” Like mortgage-backed securities? Yep, that’s worked out pretty well, Senator. Bang up job. We should definitely bring that same approach to health care.
UPDATE: Then again, if we bring the same approach to health care that we brought to the banking industry, maybe in eight years or so, our health care system will completely collapse and the government will have to step in and take over. Voila! A national health care system. Brilliant.
But really, how bad could it get?
“Mr. Bernanke and Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. had made an urgent and unusual evening visit to Capitol Hill, and they were gathered around a conference table in the offices of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
“When you listened to him describe it you gulped,” said Senator Charles E. Schumer, Democrat of New York.
…the congressional leaders were told “that we’re literally maybe days away from a complete meltdown of our financial system, with all the implications here at home and globally.”
Mr. Schumer added, “History was sort of hanging over it, like this was a moment.”
When Mr. Schumer described the meeting as “somber,” Mr. Dodd cut in. “Somber doesn’t begin to justify the words,” he said. “We have never heard language like this.””
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/20/washington/19cnd-cong.html?_r=2&hp&oref=slogin&oref=slogin
And what about privatizing social security?
Treasury wants $700 billion with no strings attached.
And:
“Decisions by the Secretary pursuant to the authority of this Act are non-reviewable and committed to agency discretion, and may not be reviewed by any court of law or any administrative agency.”
http://dealbook.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/09/20/the-bush-administrations-700-billion-rescue-plan/
This University of Chicago GSB professor says:
Why Paulson is Wrong
“The Paulson RTC will buy toxic assets at inflated prices thereby creating a charitable institution that provides welfare to the rich—at the taxpayers’ expense.”
http://faculty.chicagogsb.edu/luigi.zingales/Why_Paulson_is_wrong.pdf
We don’t speak often enough on Commonweal of the plight of the rich, who suffer more because they have more to lose.