This is Why Republicans Can’t Win Elections These Days
It couldn’t last. I knew that the pleasant Friday dream of Lindsay Graham doing battle with Barbara Boxer on the Senate floor – a righteous warrior in the defense of economic liberty – had to end.
I just expected it to last longer than two weeks.
Sunday, it was the same ol’ Moderate Lickspittle Lindsay we’ve come to know and love who showed up on George Snuffleupagus’ show.
“Yes, this idea of nationalizing banks is not comfortable, but I think we have gotten so many toxic assets spread throughout the banking and financial community throughout the world that we’re going to have to do something that no one ever envisioned a year ago, no one likes, but, to me, banking and housing are the root cause of this problem. And I’m very much afraid that any program to salvage the bank is going to require the government. …”
Stephanopolous interrupted to ask what he would do now, and Graham replied: “I would not take off the idea of nationalizing the banks.”
I tell you, folks, the Democrats do not have problems with their Senators running off and saying that we might have to do something crazy like give you a tax cut or let the market decide what radio shows to put on the air. I can not, for the life of me, figure out why we can’t find a couple Republicans capable of cracking a decent whip in the Senate.
UPDATE: Linked by Stacy McCain (who I shall now think of as the Million Hit Blogger)
Other Posts of Interest:
- Specter’s Weak Tea
- Welcome to the People’s Glorious Revolutionary Currency Storage and Redistribution Center!
- What the Heck, It’s Only A Few Billion Dollars, Right?
Category: Featured, The Economy and Your Money, The Republican Minority, The Rise of the Nanny State
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Well, I guess I can post. That Lindsey Graham is talking about nationalization says quite a lot about how bad Bush let this problem get. I'm with you Jimmie, I don't like the nationalization of banks. I preferred regulating banks so they wouldn't get themselves into this kind of problem in the first place. But Phil Gramm wanted this, and Bill Clinton capitulated. So we are we where are. Clinton certainly deserves a lot of blame for buying into Republican philosophy. But perhaps Republicans deserve some blame for pushing that philosophy. Whatever, we're here where we are. The question is how to get out of the forest, and we have no dog to lead us out. I wish I had an answer, but I don't. I know that consumption must increase because inventory numbers look really bad (high inventory is bad). It's really hard to sell things now. That's not good for us engineers. I'm okay for now, I'm in the medical industry. People need my services, and people naturally get elective services when they get laid off. They still get their insurance, but now have the time to do it. A year from now, we'll get the economic hit. By then, much fewer people can afford our services. I'd say it sucks for those people who don't have insurance, but I haven't had it for ten years. And any insurance policy I could get would cost a minimum of $70,000 per year. Lloyd's of London will do that, but I can self-insure for less than that. So I have little sympathy for those who lose their insurance. They are simply in my boat.
A huge part of the problem is the regulation we've already had on banks. Like it or not, forcing banks under the CRA to extend themselves much farther than they wanted, then having the GSE's buy up their bad mortgages put them in a bad spot when the mortgage market slipped. The problem is that the banks were under the gun. If they didn't play ball with the gov't, the Clinton admin has already put into place the resources to let activist groups run them through the mill. If they did, they ended up holding a lot of bad paper that they could only reasonably recoup by bundling up with better paper. But when the GSEs went bad, that took a lot of good paper down with them.
But it was not, in fact, a "Republican Philosophy" that got us most of the way to where we are today. Hell, just repealing the "mark to market" rules that the Dems put into place would solve many of the bigger problems.
I'll also add that there aren't many industries more regulated than the financial industry.
Came by way of the Million Hit Blogger. I would see them fail. I don't care WHAT anyone says, if banks fail, SOMEONE will pick them up for cheap prices and push onward.
The FDIC can guarantee folks money, but I see it as transferring my account to the new owner- much like my mortgage that was sold twice in the past 4 years.
fostert – "But Phil Gramm wanted this, and Bill Clinton capitulated"
Phil Gramm wanted what? Please explain precisely how a "Republican philosophy" led to the current situation? Do you understand what you are saying?