Obama: We're in this mess because the fundamentals are bad, and the fundamentals are bad because the Republicans have been ignoring ordinary working people and their needs. Most of what I think we should do is not particularly germane, and what is germane I don't want to explain in too much detail because I'm worried I might get it wrong. I'm sticking to my platform.
McCain: We're in this mess because a bunch of Wall Street hot shots got us into it, but they won't dare to pull that stuff when I'm in the White House, because I survived five years in a POW camp. Do I look like the kind of guy who hangs around with a bunch of Wall Street sissies who buy their shirts at Thomas Pink? Not on your tintype girlie-girl.
Copyright © 2009 by The Atlantic Monthly Group. All rights reserved.
We're in this mess because ultimately made up assets (CDOs and their plethora of derivatives) have to be tied to something real... like the McMansion Joe and Sally Six-Pack bought for $250,000 with 0 down and a monthly income of $2500....
The solution both "leaders" have in mind: Increase government power over that sector of the market. Funny how that works, right? Next stop: After decades of government interference in the medical and health insurance market, the high costs will require government to take it over. Beltway libertarians will purse their lips and shake their heads sadly, as they order another Pinot.
Obama: I haven't got a clue.
McCain: Nor do I.
Congress: Love to help but we're outta here. Recess!
Bush: Who me?
Not holding my breath for the next fiscally conservative & socially liberal democrat / republican presidential nominee.
I still think if you can't describe the situation in one sentence, using the words, "repo," "counter-party risk," and "mark-to-market," you shouldn't talk. Just because a building collapsed, the plumbers and the gardeners shouldn't comment on how to re-build the house, it should just be left to other architects and construction workers.
Ha ha! Good one!! A pox on both their houses! They're both just as guilty, as usual!!! No reason for any analysis or to take some sort of reasoned stand!!! Phil Gramm is irrelevant to this discussion--it's all bout sophomoric pseudo-observations!!!
Megan, I'm amazed that among all this clinton-did-it-more talk, you don't ever mention The Commodities Futures Modernization Act. Phil Gramm's baby, squeezed in with no debate in December 2000 when everybody was distracted by the Supreme Court and Florida.
Wikipedia:
"...introduced in the Senate on Dec. 15th, 2000 by Sen. Richard Lugar (R-IN) and cosponsored by Sen. Peter Fitzgerald (R-IL) Sen. Phil Gramm (R-TX) Sen. Charles Hagel (R-NE) Sen. Thomas Harkin (D-IA) Sen. Tim Johnson (D-SD)
and never debated in the Senate."
"The act specifically banned regulation of credit default swaps."
Read it and weep:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodity_Futures_Modernization_Act_of_2000
This crisis isn't because of something George Bush did. Obama has said very clearly: It's a result of failed economic "theories" and "philosophies."
And J McC is still four-square behind those theories and philosophies.
We've run the Reaganomics experiment. It failed. All the data says so. Napkin-scribbled theories notwithstanding.
Seems like it's time to put aside childish things.
If the bill McCain sponsored to reform the GSEs had passed, would it have helped at all?
What about if Gramm-Leach had not passed?
We're in this mess because the fundamentals are bad, and the fundamentals are bad because the Republicans have been ignoring ordinary working people and their needs.
Isn't pretty much the opposite the case? We're in this mess because politicians in both parties worried too much about turning 'ordinary working people' into homeowners, whether or not they were good credit risks.
I am reminded of Obama's recent ad, the one where he intones that "you" met your obligations, but the greedy folks on Wall Street let you down. If more Americans met their obligations (e.g., paying their mortgages) we wouldn't be in this mess.
Not on your tintype girlie-girl.
Strictly speaking, if you want it to sound like McCain, it's more like
Why don't you go fuck yourself, you stupid cunt.
There we go, much more mavericky.
I thought that was Cheney.
If more Americans met their obligations (e.g., paying their mortgages) we wouldn't be in this mess.
There's blame to go around. The "ownership society" meme set the tone, the unregulated mortgage brokers and investment bankers created the moral hazard, and the American people fell for it and bought the mortgages. Now we're reaping the whirlwind, and it sucks.
A teensy edit for you: "candidates' response," not "candidate's response." Don't hate me!
If the bill McCain sponsored to reform the GSEs had passed, would it have helped at all?
The problem never has been, and never was due to the GSE's. When the housing market really took off in 2003-2005, they were a rather unimportant part of it (one of the first signs something was wrong). They were only able to get back in (at the behest of our government) in 2006 and 2007. They were somewhat forced to do it, since the government wanted to bring liquidity back to the market since banks stopped making loans.
The main problem was that banks were no longer financially responsible for the loans they made. The easiest regulation would be to make sure that loan originators have a financial stake in the performance of the loan. Lots of people were at fault, but if banks knew that the loan had to perform we'd never have such a crazy lending environment.
I wonder if the Republican and Democrat candidstes for Governor of Texas are accusing one another' party's of failing to prevent hurricane Ike?
The fact is that neither candidate and neither party has any idea of what government action or inaction might really have prevented the present financial mess. As with hurricane Ike, its fallout seems to being competently managed; and that is the best we can hope for.
Steve: Unlike most of the nonsense that comes out of congress, the title of the Commodities Futures Modernization Act was actually pretty accurate. Pretty much every other jurisdiction on the planet had clearly-defined non-intrusive rules on CDS. Before the CFMA, we didn't have any kind of regulatory regime for the CDS market. The law was a murky, undefined mess that no one had written with the CDS market in mind. We were regarded as primitive and overregulated by the likes of France and Germany. It was humiliating.
A clear legal regime is a good thing. And, especially in the case of a highly international market like credit default swaps, a legal regime that is consistent with the rest of the world is a very good thing. At any rate, I haven't seen any serious suggestion that there was ever any possibility of anyone drafting any sort of regulations on credit default swaps that would have been relevant to the current crisis.
I'll admit that blaming the crisis on CFMA is a little more plausible than trying to blame it on GLB, but it's still a dead end.
There's blame to go around. The "ownership society" meme set the tone, the unregulated mortgage brokers and investment bankers created the moral hazard, and the American people fell for it and bought the mortgages. Now we're reaping the whirlwind, and it sucks.
Hey, I largely agree with liberalrob. I wouldn't let "the American people" off so lightly (they didn't "fall for it" so much as they jumped at it), but in general it wasn't a single point of failure. It was a cascade of people thinking they were getting something to be true: people getting mortgages they can't afford, loan brokers writing loans they know can't paid back, bankers turning those loans into "low-risk" instruments, all aided and abetted by a government that saw home-ownership as an unalloyed good.
I don't think you can regulate that something for nothing desire out of existence. I think the best you can do is minimize the impact on the responsible ones. Unfortunately, it's too late to unwind it so these bailouts are likely to be the best way to minimize the impact on the responsible.
But going forward, let's not have Fannie/Freddie-type GSEs again. Can we at least agree to have learned that lesson?
I'd also like to see a different tack at regulation. Instead of trying to regulate safety, is there some way to regulate out "too big to fail"? Let companies do what they want, but they're on they're own. If they get so big that they're failure would pose a structural threat to the economy, that's ground for break-up/divestiture.
Wasn't the demise of Countrywide due primarily to having promised investors that it would repurchase loans in financial difficulties? AFAICT, that is the medicine you prescribe for curing the mortgage ills. Why didn't it work for Countrywide, and if indeed it didn't, why will it work now?
Steve Roth says, "We've run the Reaganomics experiment. It failed. All the data says so."
Really?!? To which data are you referring? Inflation? Unemployment? Economic Growth?
Last I checked, we still haven't had a single quarter of economic contraction, let alone a recession by the current definition of the term.
I'm sorry, Steve, you cannot redefine terms just to suit your personal position.
If they get so big that they're failure would pose a structural threat to the economy, that's ground for break-up/divestiture.
We tried that with AT&T. It worked, too; at least in the arena of long-distance service, competition led to innovation and improved service (local service remained monopolistic until cellular technology became ubiquitous). You could also make a case that the AT&T breakup made it easier for the Internet to happen (since telecom innovation didn't rely on Bell Labs exclusively anymore). But the free-marketers screamed bloody murder, and over time the regulations that led to the breakup were relaxed or unenforced. Now we see the quiet reassembly of Ma Bell under the revived AT&T name. To my knowledge, AT&T is once again the exclusive provider of local POTS telephone service in the nation (and a major player in cellular as well, though there is still competition among the remaining handful of players). Is AT&T once again "too big to fail?" If GM collapses, it will throw tens (maybe hundreds) of thousands out of work; is GM too big to fail? What if GM and Ford both collapse, would that rise to the level of too big to fail? Yet any suggestion of government intervention in the auto industry draws howls of protest from the free-marketers.
We're not going to get anywhere until some accommodation is reached between the Hayekian laissez-faire types and the Keynesian government-interventionists. Right now the pendulum has swung radically from the Keynesian 40's and 50's to the Hayekian 80's and 90's. Now it'll probably swing back again as people freak out and demand government protections from the very real personal tragedies that result from pure Hayekian policies. Then it will swing back again, and again, and again. Someone needs to grab the pendulum and stop it at some place in the middle.
"Not on your tin-type, girlie girl" is a direct quote from The Music Man, which McCain's constant "my friends" reminds many of us of.
I wonder if the Republican and Democrat candidstes for Governor of Texas are accusing one another' party's of failing to prevent hurricane Ike?
The election for Governor was last year. Besides, being the Governor of Texas doesn't mean anything. The current POTUS shows us that.
Yeah, Obama's unwillingness to talk about the details of what he would do that is relevant because he would screw it up. It couldn't be that he knows the American people don't care/understand and the news wouldn't cover it anyway. After all, his long string of gaffes is much more telling than the long string of times the American people couldn't have cared less about a complex policy issues.
/snark
The election for Governor was last year.
2006, actually. Time does get away.
Dem turnout was up a bit in 2006 (not enough to help Chris Bell, unfortunately), so we had more delegates for my precinct at our precinct convention this spring. Which was a good thing, since we went from 8 people trying to fill 11 delegate slots in 2004 to 100+ people trying to fill 15.
What if congress set definition for "too big to fail", and companies that fit that definition either break themselves up into smaller bits, or they pay an insurance fee for the day they may need/use the federal bailout?
It's like FDIC for big business!
Liberal Rob,
The continued government support of the GSEs by giving them implicit subsidies was the opposite of the AT&T breakup. Their implicit federal guarantee enabled them to borrow at lower costs than truly private-sector competitors, and their political connections and weak regulator enabled them to take more risks than private sector companies (for example, by operating with much more leverage). As a result, they came to dominate the secondary market for mortgages, to the point where they were 'too big to fail'. At this point, the bailout was necessary, but we would have been better off breaking them up into smaller companies years ago and making them play by the same rules as everyone else.
For those who don't understand the GSEs' role in this mess, if they weren't buying so many sketchy mortgages and packaging them into mortgage backed securities, those mortgage brokers wouldn't have been able to give out so many mortgages to marginal borrowers -- if a mortgage broker can't sell his mortgages, he can't offer new ones.
This really gets to the heart of the problem with the Democrats' claim that regulation is the answer: Democrats don't like financial regulation when it conflicts with their own policy objectives, e.g., making home ownership more affordable. The Dems weren't lining up to restrict the leverage and risk at Fannie and Freddie, and they didn't seem to mind the enormous pay packages that Fannie CEOs got, as long as these went to well-connected Dems like current Obama economic adviser Franklin Raines.
Anybody with an ounce of honesty or sense has grasped for years, if not decades, that the GSE model was a disaster waiting to happen. Obama's rhetoric, in which he rails against "the old boy's network", or huge bonuses being paid to mendacious executives, while Obama has the likes of Raines and Johnson advise him, is simply execrable.
I really despise much of McCain's rhetoric as well, for slighlty different reasons.
Liberalrob, if someone would explain what GSEs, and a central banker inevitably making errors as to what the money supply should be, has to to do with policies that Hayek supported, that would be illuminating.
On another note, if Greenspan had regard for his historical reputation, he should have had enough humility to grasp that the longer he hung around, the more likely it was that he would make some really damaging missteps. The job is esssentially impossible, and how one's performance will be viewed in good measure turns on luck (much like the Presidency, by the way) so a guy who values his reputation should get out while the getting is good.
Not knowing the man, perhaps he knew this full well, but simply thought he was the best guy for the job regardless, reputation be damned. I doubt it, however.
My recollection (which might be mistaken) was that way back in the day ('97?), Greenspan tried to prick the stock market bubble (does the phrase "irrational exuberance" ring a bell?) and got his head handed to him for his troubles.
From that point on, Greenspan seemed to be focused on finding a "soft landing". And what he would up doing was chasing the bubble around via huge infusions of cash. Stocks, mortgages, commodities have serially boomed as the previous bubble started to collapse and the Fed pushed more money into the system to stave off the collapse.
But at no point did the soft landing ever occur, we just bounced onto the next bubble. Now, I don't know if there is no next bubble left, or Bernanke has decided it's time to come back to earth. It does seem that instead of avoiding the earlier crashes, we've just accumulated (and compounded) them.
I agree that Greenspan deserves a fair amount of blame, but I think he really was trying to do his best to avoid a catastrophe that he foresaw, but lacked the courage to avert early on.
To my knowledge, AT&T is once again the exclusive provider of local POTS telephone service in the nation (and a major player in cellular as well, though there is still competition among the remaining handful of players)
They haven't bought Qwest yet, and besides, cellular has pretty much sucked the profitability out of residential POTS while telecom law provides that the lines must remain open to competing broadband providers, regardless of who technically owns the infrastructure in a given area.
The cellular market, as of about three years ago when I last had to do any research on it, was divided up evenly between AT&T GSM, Verizon CDMA, and Sprint/Nextel CDMA. Given Sprint's talent for shedding customers, I would guess it is more of a 40/40/20 split by now not including whatever minority fraction of the customer base is operating on third-party leased space (T-Mobile, Tracphone, Virgin, Qwest, local independents and co-ops providers, etc.).
if Greenspan had regard for his historical reputation, he should have had enough humility to grasp that the longer he hung around, the more likely it was that he would make some really damaging missteps. The job is esssentially impossible, and how one's performance will be viewed in good measure turns on luck
Indeed, how unfortunate for Greenie to endorse Bush, Jr.'s wildly irresponsible regressive tax cuts (before he was against 'em!) or adjustable rate mortgages. What dastardly fates let him proclaim the houseing crisis over two years ago? It's a modern Greek Tragedy, it is. He's about as unlucky as the extremely qualified National Security Adviser Condoleezza "Who could have imagined...?" Rice.
Obama's rhetoric, in which he rails against ...huge bonuses being paid to mendacious executives, while Obama has the likes of Raines and Johnson advise him
Were you thinking of John McCain's rhetoric and the recently disappeared Carly Fiorina? 'Cause that would, like, you know, make a heck of a lot more sense.
I really despise much of McCain's rhetoric as well, for slighlty different reasons.
As an independent who is in no way a barely veiled Republican, why don't you share why you despise John "Spain?" McCain so much. Here's your chance to be fair and balanced!
It seems to me that the trick here, in terms of regulation is to let folks do all kinds of neat experimental things with exotic financials until they work them out, and once they standardize, to apply the lightest possible regulation that introduces orderly behavior.
Take CDSes for example. At one point, they were pretty exotic. Today, they are pretty standardized. I don't see any reason why there shouldn't be reserve requirements for them just like *any* other insurance product.
The other wild child of this whole mess, CDOs seem to have actually worked as advertised. Correct me if I'm wrong, but the top CDO tranches have still delivered? My understanding is that we got into this mess with CDOs because investment banks and hedge funds noticed that they where (temporarily) less risky than Moody's rated them to be, and so more profitable than expected. So they overloaded on them on credit. That doesn't seem to be a call for more regulation of CDOs to me.
"like the McMansion Joe and Sally Six-Pack bought for $250,000 with 0 down and a monthly income of $2500...."
Plenty of blame to go around, but this is an important part of the equation.
Just because someone is willing to give you enough rope to hang yourself doesn't mean you should do it.
And it's disingenuous for Obama to try to lay this all at the feet of the Republicans -- Gramm may have sponsored Gramm-Leach-Bliley, but it passed both houses of Congress with overwhelming, bipartisan support (including Joe Biden), and was signed by Bill Clinton.
Tell me, ya' ol genius, ed, when did Fiorina cash out with tens of millions in bonuses from an entity which was backed by an implicit (now, unfortunately, explicit) taxpayer guarantee? An entity which has now left the taxpayers guaranteeing 5 TRILLION in real estate notes? Do tell!!!
Regarding, McCain his railing against earmarks (which by itself is fine) while failing to note that any serious attempt to balance the books, given his favored tax policies, would need to include cutting entitlement and defense spending, is deserving of contempt. Of course, Obama's proposed tax policy is possibly only slightly less irresponsible, and probably not more responsible at all, once one factors the various spending proposals he has put forward.
I guess that's why the Wall Street Journal (no kidding) is calling for McCain to put Palin on the case:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122169345090449893.html
I repeat: the WALL STREET JOURNAL.
'Nuff said.
My POTS is provided by Verizon. Makes it hard to say that AT&T is the exclusive POTS provider in the U.S.
Megan,
Maybe you could opine why you think Obama or McCain should be asked about any of this.
Really, what business is it of the government if a bunch of rich people lose money betting on the value of real estate.
Isn't risk/reward the essence of a free society?
Obama wants to blame Bush because Obama wants to be President. He blames Bush for anything and everything bad that's ever happened while Bush was President, and taken credit for himself for anything good that's happened the two years he's been a Senator, whether he showed up or not to even vote on it.
McCain would like to "talk straight" and tell you that the government isn't going to do anything about AIG ... because it's not the governments effing business. The taxpayers don't exist to ensure that NY moneymen have jobs.
Isn't it all just a bunch of hooey what either one of them thinks?
Why try the Obama economic plan? Other countries have tried and failed... Maybe we'll do it better, I guess.
entitlement spending is the #1 issue with the Federal budget today and going forward. Unfunded and underfunded mandates are chewing up more and more of the budget every year. The military was underfunded in the 1990's, wich to an extent resulted in the massive additional expenditures requireed after 9/11.
Until someone gets Social Security, Medicare, and other major programs, as well as federal work rules and retirement under control, it's just going to get worse.
SS is the "third rail" in American politics, and one of the few to address this has been McCain. But no one who gets near to doing anything will survive politically. the democrats response has been to sweep it all under the rug.
At present we need someone in government who can just say no. Perhaps Mccain as a likely 1 term president is the one who can do it without risking his reelection chances.
In the case of equities, we have short sellers who scour balance sheets looking for bullshit which indicates a money making opportunity through the shorting process. In the case of mortgage backed securities, this mechanism was lacking. Every financial innovation should be assessed for its safety with the following question;"If things go south for this investment, is there a way for someone else to profit by taking a counter position?". If the answer is no, that's a big red flag. Short sellers are vilified now, but they keep the equities markets honest. How did the shorts miss the opportunity with Lehman? Or did they?
[i]liberalrob[/i] wrote: [quote]You could also make a case that the AT&T breakup made it easier for the Internet to happen (since telecom innovation didn't rely on Bell Labs exclusively anymore). But the free-marketers screamed bloody murder, and over time the regulations that led to the breakup were relaxed or unenforced.[/quote]
'Scuse me: spinning the telco breakup as a triumph of regulation over laissez-faire gets it pretty close to ass-backwards! What really occurred was a shift, beginning during the Nixon administration and culminating in the 1984 breakup, from telecom monopoly with Federal-gummint price regulation to marketplace competition in everything but local-exchange POTS.
Let us cut to the chase people. The congress wrote the rules and Wall Street played by them. Played right up to the edge to be sure, but played by them. Congress created Fanny and Freddy who didn't play by any rules except those of a greedy beast and political piggy bank. Some banks went over the line to be sure, like Countrywide and made lots of money some of which they could contribute to their favorite congress persons, (Let’s keep good times rolling). In truth, we are all to blame, as we succumbed to the temptation of "Leverage". (Buying a candy bar with a Visa card? Buying groceries at the quickie mark with plastic? Buying a house with nothing down? Buying a second and third house by re-financing our primary residence hoping to "flip" them in a year or less?) It's easy to polish up a finger, all the better to point with, but we have to shoulder some of the blame. And, why not, are we not going to shoulder all of the cost?
I don't suppose anyone is interested in addressing my core contentions; it's much more fun to point out gaps in my knowledge and laugh. Oh well.
What really occurred was a shift, beginning during the Nixon administration and culminating in the 1984 breakup, from telecom monopoly with Federal-gummint price regulation to marketplace competition in everything but local-exchange POTS.
And where are we headed now? How long until AT&T makes a play for Sprint? Then who knows, maybe Verizon will be next. The natural tendency of unregulated companies is to try to create a monopoly. Yes there are antitrust regulations on the books, but if they are not enforced then they don't really matter. If the watchdogs don't bark, what stops them?
It's easy to polish up a finger, all the better to point with, but we have to shoulder some of the blame.
Fine, but do we have to shoulder ALL of it? *I* didn't buy one of those pie-in-the-sky mortgages- and I surely could have qualified for one. Yes, we're all in the same sinking boat and it's going to go down regardless; but at the same time, I'd like to take some steps to try to ensure that the next boat doesn't sink the same way, if I'm going to be asked to man a pump on this one.
Until someone gets Social Security, Medicare, and other major programs, as well as federal work rules and retirement under control, it's just going to get worse.
Yes matt, those darn entitlements. What's your solution, that doesn't involve kicking retirees out on the streets and denying health care to those unable to pay (even more than it happens now)? Maybe poor people just should never retire, and if they get sick and can't pay they should just die? Let the market rule! If old people are in the streets, why a business will spring up to house them! If poor people need expensive health care, the market will find a way to satisfy that unmet demand! Maybe Soylent Green wasn't such a bad idea after all!
Really, what business is it of the government if a bunch of rich people lose money betting on the value of real estate.
If the rich people could go bankrupt without disrupting the lives of the non-rich, I'd say let 'em crash. Unfortunately, letting the chips fall would hurt a whole heckuva lot of people beyond just the rich folks.
...they didn't seem to mind the enormous pay packages that Fannie CEOs got, as long as these went to well-connected Dems like current Obama economic adviser Franklin Raines.
All those multi-million-dollar pay packages are obscene and should never have been given out, regardless who got them. But let's not confuse the issue by implying the GSEs were wasting taxpayer money. The GSEs as I understand them were being run as regular businesses; it was just that at need they could call upon the financial backing of the Federal treasury, where a non-GSE could not. There should have been stronger oversight of the GSEs (and indeed all mortgage brokers as well) to prevent the abuses and mistakes that have driven us to where we find ourselves. But the bias of Republican government (based on the Hayek/Friedman school of thought) is to deregulate, not regulate; to reduce oversight, not investigate and report. So here we are. Well done, wise men! The market is functioning just as it should. Some sharp operators got rich working the system, and the public treasury is left holding the bag. Sweet.
We're not going to get anywhere until some accommodation is reached between the Hayekian laissez-faire types and the Keynesian government-interventionists.
Ahh, the irony. Hayek was never a big fan of unbridled laissez-faire economics. Does anyone read books anymore, or do they simply content themselves with the garbled Cliff-Notes version?
Some sharp operators got rich working the system, and the public treasury is left holding the bag. Sweet.
I notice that most of the sharp operators in question, at Freddy, Fannie, and Leheman, were Democrats. Obama supporters.
McCain: You know, in 2005 I proposed legislation to revamp the regulation of Freddy and Fanny. to bad that didn't go anywhere.
Obama: Present!
Liberalrob, it seems to have escaped you that Democrats fought hardest against reforming Fannie and Freddie, not Republicans.
now now, you know i'm fine with you talking about the economy and poking fun of obama & mccain are fair game, i guess, but don't you -dare- talk trash about thomas pink. that's just taking it too far.
That about sums it up
That's right. They're totally clueless and equally corrupt, as is most of Congress.
So please, in the name of all things good and decent, kick all the Republicrat bums out and vote third party - or at least vote out the incumbents - from top to bottom.
Please!
Yes matt, those darn entitlements. What's your solution, that doesn't involve kicking retirees out on the streets and denying health care to those unable to pay (even more than it happens now)? Maybe poor people just should never retire, and if they get sick and can't pay they should just die? Let the market rule! If old people are in the streets, why a business will spring up to house them! If poor people need expensive health care, the market will find a way to satisfy that unmet demand! Maybe Soylent Green wasn't such a bad idea after all!
Oh the drama. But that Soylent Green thing? Precious.
It's just like Noonan said though, isn't it: "Everyone is sick in their world..."
No, no, NO, Megan. McCain will solve the problem by "getting everybody together in a room and telling them to cut the shit", just as he promised to solve the breakdown of Iraq that way.
Hayek was never a big fan of unbridled laissez-faire economics.
And yet his name keeps getting invoked when we talk about regulation of the free market. If he's so pro-regulation, why is he constantly being brought into this discussion?
OK, if he wasn't a big fan of unbridled laissez-faire, his bridle was apparently pretty loose. Looser than I'd like.
Oh the drama.
You're new here, aren't you. You ain't seen nothin'.
I notice that most of the sharp operators in question, at Freddy, Fannie, and Leheman, were Democrats. Obama supporters.
Really, you noticed that? Well, I noticed that most of them were Republicans and McCain supporters. Weird.