Out of the frying pan and …
The House just defeated Bush’s 700 billion dollar bailout plan.
It’s a tough decision. The closeness of the vote reflects that: 228-205 against. And that’s even after the House leaders kept the clock open. (Another form of lying that means they can pressure members to change their vote after the voting is over.)
On balance, I think they did the right thing. House member Brad Sherman, Republican of California said it best, “We’ve got your 401(k) and if you want to see it alive again, give us 700 billion in unmarked bills.”
Make no mistake, this doesn’t mean that it’s over and it doesn’t mean things will get better now. If you refuse the ransom, it usually means that the victim is toast. I’m afraid that’s exactly what it means this time. Paulson’s line is that if we don’t do this, we’re in for a long, hard recession. I think that if we do it, we’re in for a longer, harder hyperinflation. Say “Hello” to Argentina.
Such is the penalty for electing Bush. Twice.
The bottom line is that there just isn’t an easy solution. As I drive to my (completely paid for, by the way) home in Color Country, I pass huge McMansions, many up for sale. Who do you think holds these risky mortgages? That would be the greedy Americans who wanted the big house with little money down and no ability to actually afford it. There is no question that the idiots who run American businesses are also to blame. (Like McCain advisor Carly Fiorina – kicked out as CEO of HP for losing half the shareholder’s money but also given a 40 million dollar plus kiss-off.) The one thing I did like about the bailout bill was that it formally recognized these traitorous scum for their greedy part in this unfolding tragedy.
But swallowing the bitter pill now is about the only thing I can think of that even has a chance. It does have one thing to recommend it. The guilty … and that’s all of us … will be punished. And severely.
As Pogo said many years ago, “We have met the enemy and he is us!”
I don’t disagree with you. However, to be fair it is not all Bush’s fault.
The Democrats finger prints are all over the problems with Fannie and Freddy going back to Carter.
Dodd and Franks have been on the Senate and House banking committees forever and chairmen the last two years. If they ever blew the whistle on the impending crisis I never heard it. They could not have stopped it by themselves but they could have waved a red flag.
However — there is no getting around Bush was president for the last seven plus years and had a Republican House and Senate for six years.
“… it is not all Bush’s fault.”
That depends on what the definition of “all” is.
(Sorta like Clinton’s “that depends on what the definition of “is” is”)
This might have been survivable if Bush hadn’t spent whatever “wiggle room” money we had in Iraq. (And given what little was left to millionaires in tax breaks.) But the combination of ballooning balance of trade deficits on the Bush watch with ballooning federal deficit spending has left us in a position where the current banking crisis may well be fatal rather than just a serious disease.
Here’s a couple of examples to illustrate why Bush deserves the blame for where we are today. Just check out how Bush manipulated the primary players in this disaster.
Christopher Cox is the SEC chairman that Bush appointed in 2005. Before Cox, his predecessor at the SEC, William Donaldson, was catching flak because he was actually enforcing regulations. While Donaldson was in charge, penalties for violating SEC rules were on the rise and peaked at $1.5 billion in 2005. Bush couldn’t have that! As soon as Cox took over penalties dropped by two-thirds, to $507 million last year.
Virtually the same story is there for Bush’s Treasury Secretary before Paulson, Paul O’Neill. He was also forced from office because he insisted on doing his job. O’Neill collaborated on a tell-all book about it: The Price of Loyalty George W. Bush, the White House, and the Education of Paul O’Neill.
While it might be argued that more enforcement and better regulation could have been done before Bush, he pushed it to a totally new level of incompetence and political interference. Before Bush, we were getting along. But he took us way beyond the “tipping point”.
As for raising the flag while there was still time to do something about it, here’s a New York Times article from 2005: Bush S.E.C. Pick Is Seen as Friend to Corporations
A quote from the article:
President Bush, hearing complaints about Mr. Donaldson’s record from across the business spectrum, responded on Thursday by nominating Representative Christopher Cox, a conservative Republican from California, as a successor whose loyalties seem clear.
…
Mr. Cox – a devoted student of Ayn Rand, the high priestess of unfettered capitalism – has a long record in the House of promoting the agenda of business interests that are a cornerstone of the Republican Party’s political and financial support.
A major recipient of contributions from business groups, the accounting profession and Silicon Valley, he has fought against accounting rules that would give less favorable treatment to corporate mergers and executive stock options. He opposes taxes on dividends and capital gains. And he helped to steer through the House a bill making investor lawsuits more difficult.
That measure, which Congress adopted over President Bill Clinton’s veto, [My emphasis added -- Bill did his best.] was hailed by business groups, which say it has reduced costly and frivolous cases.
It has also been criticized by consumer and investor organizations. They say its adoption in 1995 contributed to an unaccountable climate that fostered the big accounting scandals at companies like Enron and WorldCom a few years later.
Mr. Cox’s legislative record was cited on Thursday by President Bush as a primary qualification.
If I’m reading what you wrote above correctly, are you saying that President Bush appointed Mr. Cox in large measure because Bush knew Cox would follow the party line (“a successor whose loyalties seem clear”) and now that it didn’t all work out Bush has deserted Cox and is putting a primary part of the blame on him (“Mr. Cox’s legislative record was cited on Thursday by President Bush as a primary qualification”)?
First, the text you quote is from the New York Times article of 2005. I didn’t write it. I quote it primarily to demonstrate that there was plenty of opposition back then. But Bush was riding high in those days and simply didn’t listen to any of it. (“power corrupts”)
Bush, to my knowledge, has not deserted Cox. Bush may be a lot of things, but he is loyal to his political allies. Bush said that about Cox (“… legislative record … primary qualification”) back in 2005.
McCain has deserted Cox, however. In spite of having plenty of opportunity to “raise the flag” himself as Chairman of the Commerce Committee, McCain has “flip-flopped” on this one now and is blaming Cox for much of the present disaster. McCain may have that one right. Hey! Even a stopped clock is right twice a day.