If the GOP (including McCain) had had their way, this crisis wouldn't just be taking down AIG, Lehman et al, but also would be destroying everybody's Social Security.

President Bush: Wall Street is now hooked on heroin. Former Sen. Phil Gramm has been dispatched to counsel the leaders of major financial organizations regarding their whining and depression. Everything's fine, go out and buy yourself something nice.

I pointing out the differences between McCain and Obama's economic plans, CNN said that McCain wants to bring food prices down. Really? Where does that come from?

While Mr. McCain has cited the need for additional oversight

Note to McCain: Overlooking is not the same as oversight.

The good news is the focus is shifting away from Sarah Palin. That's good for Obama because now the discussion can focus on the issues and go after McCain and the GOP for the mess they created. Obama can go back to driving home the issues and themes he put forth in his amazing speech at Mile High Stadium. So no more Sarah it looks like. It's just unfortunate that a financial crisis was what took the focus off her.

One of the things that angers me most as an economist is the way that movement conservatism (a.k.a. the Republican party) has hijacked economics to promote their free markets ideology. Economics has nothing to say about the virtues of free markets. It does have a good deal to say about the benefits of competitive markets, but in today's world, these results are becoming increasingly less relevant because technology has become powerful enough that small numbers of businesses can provide for all consumer demand at relatively low costs. While this is generally good for consumers, the dark side is that we have to tolerate monopolies. In the past, the quid pro quo for this tolerance of monopoly was a reasonable degree of regulation to curb the well-known economic and political excesses of monopoly.

In the current situation, no one should have expected to see really good things coming out of a financial sector consisting of the handful of large banks that resulted from the consolidation in the banking industry after the repeal of the Glass-Steigel Act, which, incidently, was engineered by Phil Gramm and fully supported (as Steve notes) by John McCain. By compounding the problem of a lack of competition with the dismantling of the financial regulatory structures, the current mess was entirely predictable. (See Paul Krugman's various columns on this over the past several years.)

But, it gets worse. While there may be some movement conservatives who actually believe the ideological claptrap they promote, there are probably more who cynically embrace this as a way of helping themselves and their cronies to get rich, secure in the knowledge that when their house of cards comes tumbling down, the tax payer will be there to bail them out.

While it was somewhat gratifying to see Secretary Paulson insist that there would be no bailout for Lehman, it remains to be seen whether this was just a sop for the masses, or whether the Bush administration is really willing to let their friends chickens come home to roost. I'm not holding my breath waiting for this, though.

Stephen Spear
Tepper School of Business
Carnegie Mellon University
Pittsburgh, PA 15213

I gave both of our 401K's a very upbeat talking-to this morning. I explained that with positive thinking and the right perspective everything would be fine. No dice: they've both lost nearly a quarter of their value.

The honeymoons over.
Google Theodore Roosevelt V wedding and you see that
he got married Saturday. He works at Lehman Bros.
So does his new father-in-law.

McCain's stupidity is showing. He doesn't understand how the markets work show he'll happily set up the next train wreck if elected president. Adhering to Republican dogma and worshipping the ground upon which Alan "Mr. Housing Bubble" Greenspan walked will surely get us into the next economic crisis.

Free markets are like sports. The game can only be played well when bounded within a clearly marked playing field. But Republicans hate that and the rest of us are always called up to eat the sh*t left over after the capitalists have had their excessive orgy. Republicans don't want small government. They want government to be just big enough to consistently bail out their reckless Wall St. friends.

Obama = second largest receiver of donations from Fannie and Freddie Mae

Stop the nonsense. Obama got two and a half one-hundredths of one percent of his donations from F&F. That's the equivelant of giving a dollar twelve to someone who has $45,600.

What was Barry's voting record in the Senate on attempts to regulate Fannie or Freddie?

Read his speech from March 27.

What in Barry's state and national voting record shows an attempt to lead change?

Try this. And McCain? What's his claim to change?

"Obama = second largest receiver of donations from Fannie and Freddie Mae"

95% of which is personal donations.

Correction: That's the equivelant of giving a dollar twelve to someone who has $4,560.

Many voters won't stop to look at McCain's voter record or policy agenda.

They will and do believe what comes out of his mouth, and it sure sounded (read FELT) reassuring and strong (albeit full of contradiction and holes and spin) this AM when he told Matt Lauer on the Today Show that he is a Teddy Roosevelt Republican, that he believes in the American worker, in their strength and ingenuity. And that this 'corrupt system' will be "cleaned up" by him. That he sure has no plans to tax ANYONE. (This last comment was his answer to Matt's inquiry about Obama wanting taxing the wealthiest of Americans). He insists that the fundamentals ARE the American worker.

He's decided to re-define the term fundamentals
apparently. And as Rachel Maddow aptly pointed out on her show last night: if we say the economy is not fundamentally sound, we are somehow undermining the American workers.

More unbelievable turning the issue completely on it's head.

Yet sadly...
That's all Americans have time for. This is what they hear: Whew! Good. He is Teddy Roosevelt now--he believes in the worker (me) and he is going to clean it all up while rooting for me.

Daddy likes me and he's going to kiss my owie and make it feel better.

I'd also argue that if you look at the breakdown of the contributions Obama received from Freddie and Fannie, 95 percent came from individuals. From what I've read, these are employees who have earmarked money for donations. I don't see how employees of Freddie and Fannie earmarking donations for Obama could have much impact on his decision-making process when it comes to these entities. After the takeover, Obama issued a statement that the Treasury shouldn't allow the CEOs of these companies to walk away with huge severances, so to me, that doesn't sound like a politician sticking up for his campaign contributors.

Alan "Mr. Slight Froth in the Housing Market" Greenspan(or Mr. Andrea Mitchell as he is also known) is just another shill for the republicans Look at this from 2005. Him and his ilk have brought this country to it's knees. They have done what is good for people like him and not the country. He should be in Jail

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/21/business/21fed.html

With the Fed pouring another $70 billion into Wall Street---identical to the idea of pouring more water into a sinking rowboat with a rotted-out bottom---I don't think we'll have to worry about McCain the Flying Squirrel and his uppity sidekick, Bullwinkle "Lipstick-on-a-Moose" Palin much longer. Try as they might and lie as they do, the GOPers are not going to buy their way out of this one. It's going to be "what's left of the Republikanner Beast to bury, after the self-immolation of the Republican Party.

The greater concern is: How much of America can we tear from their grasp, before they wrap themselves in their oil-soaked flags, and start lighting matches?

McCain is giving a speech right now in Florida and he sounds like a left-wing populist railing against Wall Street. The right-wing audience is cheering his every word.

What a bunch of phonies. These are the people that have been screaming about getting the government off business's back for thirty years. Didn't their patron saint once say, "Government is not the solution, government is the problem"?

[...] McCain said, "I am fundamentally a deregulator." -- Steve Benen

Ah... That does clear things up. It's *those* "fundamentals" of our econmy which are so impressively strong.