McCain Needs to Seize the Moment
Posted by: Jim Erwin | 10/05/2008 8:16 PM
Now that approval of the Trillion dollar give-a-way that won't accomplish anything is accomplished, it's time for Senator John McCain to seize the moment and demand accountability.
McCain, the Republican nominee for President needs to capitalize on the Wall Street debacle by laying out a plan, that if he's elected, would make crystal clear what should be done to hold those responsible accountable for their actions. McCain needs to talk tough and commit to deliver the goods.
I call on McCain to make it clear that both civil and criminal penalties will be sought by the Justice Department. People that perpetrated this historic fraud on the american people, need to go to jail and give up all their money. That's right, not just fines, but forfeiture of ill-gotten gains. It simply isn't enough to pledge to fix the system and not let it happen again. The executives knew exactly what they were doing. If Wall Street thinks the american people are going to buy the story of an army of rogue mortgage brokers conspired with borrowers and they knew nothing, they can forget it.
All of the lies and deceit from corporate executives and possibly some government officials is inexcusable. Phony public assurances of stability, bonds defaulting while triple-A, violations of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, fraud, etc. You can't go out and make public pronouncements that a company is in good shape and then have then fail the next day. In some cases evidence is already surfacing that government officials were well aware that certain companies were in trouble and still insisted it was not the case, while they were at the same time preparing to seize that very entity. Investors even bought stock in these companies based upon the fake information. It's absolutley amazing to say the least. But, you'll hear such explanations like "We lied to the publice in order to maintain confidence", "We lied to prevent a run on the bank", or "We lied because we had no idea".
McCain needs to also put the Democrats front and center and let the people now they blocked all attempts to constrain Feddie Mac and Fannie Mae. Even Former President Bill Clinton acknowledges the fact. It's obvious, Democrats ran out of town in order to runaway from any responsibility before the the November election.
It's a very angry atmosphere out in the public, and confidence is shaken. Expect demands for hundreds of billions more from Wall Street. Last week was just the beginning.
The 'Clinton' loans were done long before this mess & would have had a significant impact long ago...
McCain needs to...
"layout a plan" and "talk tough" blah, blah, blah.
Republicans and America need a real leader and real leadership. Plans and tough talk have are so commonplace that everything has been diluted to the point of noise and nonsense.
This is what we should do:
Let Obama become president. Let the Democratic Congress do whatever it is going to do. Let the catastrophes happen. And wait...
The pendulum has swung to the left and is going even further. When the problems become so severe that Americans recognize the error of leftist values, the pendulum will begin to swing back.
Until them, plans, proclamations, and tough talk mean nothing.
Andy, sadly there are a lot of conservatives who think your way, they have given up and believe the best result would be an Obama win and then in two years try to pick up the House and Senate on the mistakes that Obama makes. It won't work.
There are more democrats in the US than republicans. Plain and simple. There are more people getting government checks than not. There are more people not paying taxes than those that are paying taxes. We are in the minority on all things domestic. We won't win any election unless we can build a coalition of middle and even mid-left people who don't trust the "tax and spend" Democrats and are afraid that they will put us in harms way internationally.
Jim, a campaign for the next 30 days of "government will come down on Fannie Mae and Bank Execs" will be a loser. I've heard the little murmurings of this same strategy for the last week and I'm telling you right now, Barack Obama wins if we need to compete on who can regulate more and who can put more government over our lives.
John McCain wins when he steps outside the left and right debates and shows himself to be a leader. He should run the last 30 days on foreign affairs, our success in Iraq, and new plan to win Afghanistan, protecting Isreal from Iran .. and then a mid-conservative set of principles in favor of permanent tax cuts, helping small businesses, cutting government frivolous spending, and job creation.
McCain is done. He held his fire when he should've attacked. The moment is gone. It's too late. That says a lot about McCain.
I mean, let's face it. Small government conservatives have no reason to like McCain (and it would be McCain, and not Palin, who would be president.) McCain would be far worse than Bush in his stupid big government ways.
McCain lost. Let's all watch the NFL, instead. Go NYG!
McCain and the Republicans can win this election. The key issue in this election is the economy. The financial markets are in meltdown. People are confused, scared and angry. 60% of Americans blame the Republicans which is why McCain's and every other Republican's poll numbers are tanking.
However, the Democrats have caused this financial implosion. They are the ones who set the low income loan targets for Fannie and Freddie and CRA loans. They are the ones who blocked reform. John McCain and the Republicans can win in November by attacking the Democrats on this issue. The Democrats caused this problem and their cure is higher taxation, more spending, regulation and trade barriers. Does this sound familar, the Democrats' plan is what caused the Great Depression to go on for 10 years.
Watch this video, it is an excellent overview of the cause and how the Democrats created this disaster.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1RZVw3no2A4&feature=iv&annotation_id=even
I suggest that everyone reading this share the video, write letters to editor, call up talk show hosts and try to get the word of this crisis and the Democrats role in it -- there are only four weeks left.
Michael
The Democrats didn't underwrite mortgages. Pseudo-lenders like New Century & others issued mortgages without proof of income or limited proof of employment. Countrywide, WAMU, and many others issued Negative Amortizing loans
So what you're saying is that the government insured loans are the only cause of this crisis? How many government insured loans did New Century write?
Here's a list of subprime lenders (where most of the risk was) and none of them were able to use government backing on their loans:
http://ml-implode.com/index.html#lists
The problem had to do with Wall Street insisting on wanting more CDOs/ Mortgage-backed securities to compete with lousy bond returns.
Supply & demand. Investors wanted the loans, they just weren't very conscientious in evaluating the risks that were packaged in with the investment.