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After the $700 Billion bailout that the Bush administration is giving the financial sector, it should be clear to you that you and I have been and are getting fucked once again by both the government and these sleazy investment firms.
You can thank Senator John McCain and a few of his campaign lobbyist for a lot of this mess which we find ourselves in thanks to some bad bills and massive deregulation of banks and brokerages and so on and so on.
This shit started back with the Garn-St. Germain Depository Institutions Act, which was one of the rules that helped bring about the S&L crisis back in the 80's.
John McCain was somewhat involved with this S&L problem as where a few other senators. Remember the Keating 5? Coupled with deregulation, one should have known that things would only get worse.
Now these firms will get all of their debt wiped out by the taxpayers and then their stock values will go way up because their books will look so good. The traders will be making a killing on this bailout, as will the CEO's.
The expansion of unregulated Savings and Loans in the 1980s brought on the collapse of that industry, a crippling of the economy, and left taxpayers holding the bag. Maybe that was only happenstance. Those pushing for the Garn-St. Germain Depository Institutions Act may not have known what they were doing.
The deregulation of the California electricity market, along with the protections provided to Enron through Phil Gramm's lobbyist-written legislation brought blackouts, fiscal and political chaos, and left taxpayers holding the bag. But the people who engineered that event -- people like Gramm and Greenspan -- had already seen what happened with the S&Ls. They should have known better. Still, perhaps that was only coincidence.
The sub-prime mortgage crisis that has not only come so close to utterly destroying the markets, but has ruined the value of many people's homes and left millions with mortgages they can't pay, was also the outcome of the deregulation created by these men. The very predictable outcome. When taxpayers are left holding the bag for $1 trillion this time around, it's hard to believe it's any sort of accident.
This is enemy action. This is a bullet deliberately fired into the economy by men willing to exercise their ideology regardless of the cost to taxpayers. Men who have every expectation that they can plunder the system again and again, while the public picks up the tab. John McCain may not have had his finger directly on the trigger, but he was there. He assisted. These were his personal friends and philosophical comrades. He may not be the high priest, but he has been a loyal acolyte in the cult of deregulation.
It may come as a surprise to the champions of deregulation, but nobody likes regulation. The restrictions that were placed on banks, S&Ls, and other institutions in the 1930s weren't put there because someone thought it would be fun. They were put in place because they addressed problems that had just been clearly and painfully revealed. They were put in place because they were necessary.
It's bad enough if John McCain didn't know that. It's far worse if he did.
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