The real question is why are you responding to AWDumbass in the first place?
A little info to add to this thread that I found while trying to make sense of this financial meltdown. I’ve dumbed it down to my primitive level of economic understanding.
Leading up to the great depression, a bunch of banks gambled with a bunch of people’s money, and when they lost they lost people’s money.
So in 1933 we came up with the Glass-Steagall act, which basically said that commercial banks (that we deposit our paychecks in for safe keeping) cannot dabble in investing. It also established the FDIC and account protection (currently $100k per person), etc.
That worked great for 50 years.
Then in the early 1980’s some banks decided they wanted to make more money. So we shot a couple of loopholes in the Glass Steagall act, and Savings & Loans suddenly could take risky investments that banks could not, offering high risk loans at high interest rates. (Sound familiar?)
Surprise surprise, a few years later 747 S&L’s collapsed. One such S&L was Lincoln S&L in california, run by Charles Keating. They were collapsing, trying to raise capital by convincing a lot of elderly to move their money to their high interest accounts without telling them that it’s high risk. The government was trying to investigate, so Keating bought himself a few Senators to try to keep the heat off. One of whom was McCain. McCain took money for campaigning, flights in Keating’s private jet, vacations to his resort, etc. Ultimately Lincoln S&L collapsed, taking the life savings of 21,000 elderly with it. Keating spent 5 years in jail. In McCain’s defense, as soon as he heard the word “criminal” attached to Keating’s name he cut off all contact. He just apparently didn’t know what he was involved in for a while. McCain was only criticized by the Senate Ethics committee for exercising “poor judgement.” Apparently he didn’t have bad intentions, he was just a victim of ignorance.
Fast forward to 1999. Citibank decided to buy themselves some Senators because they wanted to make more money. So Phil Gramm introduced the Gramm-Leach-Bliley act to the Senate, and successfully repealed the Glass-Steagall act. Now banks can buy investment firms and insurance companies and gamble away. 9 years later, well, go read the headlines. Without the regulation, bad lending ensues and banks collapse.
Who is Phil Gramm now a top economic advisor to? Yep. John McCain.
What can you conclude from this? Whatever the hell you want.
What have I concluded from this? Toss in the fact that he graduated 894/899 from the Naval Academy, and I conclude that McCain does not have the ability to understand and properly run the economy nor does he surround himself with intelligent and ethical advisors to help him do so.
Now Obama doesn’t have any economic experience that I know of, but McCain’s sucks and if I have to place my bet on one or the other I’m going with the guy who graduated from Columbia and Harvard Law over the guy who graduated at the bottom of the Naval Academy.
There. That oughta stir the pot a little…
:bigblap: we’ll make an economist out of you yet.
LOL Good luck. God knows Professor Hamlen isn’t having any. :mamoru: Maybe if I paid attention or read the book…
Phil Gramm did say the economy was fine. lol
“The fundamentals of our economy are strong.”
“By fundamentals I mean workers.”
“By strong I mean drunk.”
The sad part is he was right, he just didn’t know it. If you don’t look at housing and finance, the rest of our economy is strong. Don’t ask me to explain this. I’m just regurgitating what I’ve heard smart people say. 
^And the unemployment.
What is really going to hurt McCain in the polls right now is he was for deregulation.
Nevermind that deregulation had bipartisan support and was signed into law by Clinton. Those details won’t make it into the sound byte.
But it sure sounds good if you’re an Obama supporter to say McCain voted for the deregulation and that’s why the banks are in trouble. Advantage Obama for not being around back then for the vote.
The bills were introduced in the Senate by Phil Gramm (R-TX) and in the House of Representatives by James Leach (R-IA). The bills were passed by a 54-44 vote along party lines with Republican support in the Senate[1] and by a 343-86 vote in the House of Representatives[2]. Nov 4, 1999: After passing both the Senate and House the bill was moved to a conference committee to work out the differences between the Senate and House versions. Democrats agreed to support the bill only after Republicans agreed to strengthen provisions of the Community Reinvestment Act and address certain privacy concerns.[3] The final bipartisan bill resolving the differences was passed in the Senate 90-8-1 and in the House: 362-57-15. Without forcing a veto vote, this bipartisan, veto proof legislation was signed into law by President Bill Clinton on November 12, 1999. [4]
OK so if you don’t look at banking, housing, unemployment, or any other part of the economy, the economy is strong. 
Yeah I guess that’s on the high side too.
Maybe Schmidt will tell them to just lie about it, and keep repeating the lie when called out by the media in the hopes that it sticks. That’s his policy on everything else lately.
Haha and I guess that bill being signed by a Rhodes scholar sort of puts a dent in my “the smarter guy will be better for the economy” theory. Oh well, innate preference…
But I thought the economy was fucked because the democrats took over Congress…thats what the righty pundits are saying?
Biden (D-DE), Nay
THE CHANGE WE MOTHER FUCKING NEED
And the lefties are saying it was because of McCain’s deregulation. It’s all lies now because you can’t dumb down the truth enough for someone who’s dumb enough to be undecided to understand.
Since neither guy comes from an economic background, the next most important thing is who they surround themselves with. Obama has met with a pretty impressive group of people in the know, and was doing so well before it got this bad. Here’s a bloomberg editorial on the subject that pretty much draws this conclusion.
Guys like Paul Volcker or Bob Rubin may not be household names, but they know their shit. They make Carly Fiorina look like Just Karter.
Deregulation without a doubt allowed this meltdown to happen. You can’t say it was McCain’s fault, however you can say that people who “have always fundamentally been deregulators” shouldn’t be anywhere near in control of the economy.
I mean you REALLY can’t blame McCain since he didn’t even show up to vote on this issue: No Vote AZ McCain, John [R]
But McCain’s thinking is what caused this cluster fuck, it’s very much the greed is good until everything shits the bed attitude that has taken over the republican party (and now McCain’s campaign)…and really, I don’t want someone in the white house who graduated from college 50 fucking years ago
It had bipartisan agreement but it still a republican bill, it had almost complete republican support from the start and needed to be revised and include things that democrats wanted to get passed.
Congress as a whole screwed up. But it started with the idiotic republican idea that regulation is bad and that businesses can watch themselves.
I guess I’m not the only one that thinks Republicans are partly to blame for our shitty economy. While I think polling is dumb, Republicans have to be fearful of not only loosing the Presidential Election which I will put money on that they do, but upcoming congressional seats. How many seats will they loose as Democrats pounce on this issue?
http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/09/22/cnn.poll/index.html
Republicans do not have a bright future.
The election will turn on the state of the economy in late Oct/early Nov. Undecided voters have a very short attention span and even shorter memory.
So your betting that in the 45 days left until the election the economy will not be a big part of the news and therefore people will forget that McCain and the Republican ideology helpped to get us into this mess?
That might work if nothing else happens on Wall St but I doubt it.