I'm always for less regulation. But I am aware of the view that there is a need for government oversight. ... But I am a fundamentally a deregulator. I'd like to see a lot of the unnecessary government regulations eliminated.
-WSJ via Think Progress
Just like the rest of his party, "original maverick" John McCain is a strict follower of the dogma of deregulation. Deregulation in the financial sector is exactly what lobbyists want. It allows for unrestricted Invisible Hand (+ Invisible Handouts) Economics. But it's not helping. It's not helping middle class Americans who feel the burn of an economic crisis, and it's not helping the upper class--or even the corporate class-either. Regulation doesn't just keep corporations from screwing the public; it keeps them from screwing each other.
Anybody who was listening to NPR around noon on Saturday heard all about Bush-appointee Chris Cox, absentee Chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, whose modus operandi is as little regulation and enforcement as possible. How just in the past few months, he has said no to bipartisan offers from Congress for authority to find out whether (as is evident) credit rating companies are getting paid to lie to investors about how safe certain new securities are and said no to bipartisan offers from Congress for a bigger budget for enforcement.
This current crisis was caused by financial companies swindling each other into making and recommending investments that weren't nearly as safe as many were led to believe, and yet the first priority of Wall Street's top regulator is preserving the anarchy. Anarchy, as even the most basic examination of political philosophy, common sense, or current events will find, is bad for everyone.
But it should come as no surprise; the Republican Party has been pushing anarchy in business for decades; finally, they won, and this is what happened. It's a wonder people failed to see this coming.
This is simply part of a decades-old Republican assault on the American Dream, both for those who seek it and those who have achieved it. Trickle-down economics have been proven real in one sense: follow their dogma and you will end up with a trickle-down economic crisis. This isn't just bad for the people losing their jobs; it isn't just bad for the investors who are losing their money (from 401(k)'s to billion-dollar portfolios); it's bad for the corporations who hired the lobbyists and gave the money to the Republicans to create this mess.
The only people who benefit from this entirely avoidable and foreseeable state of affairs are those who bet against the United States of America.
Yet John McCain keeps pushing the same policies that got us here, promising more of the exact same while calling it "change", and insisting, 22 times this year and as recently as yesterday, that "the fundamentals of our economy our strong". I won't stoop to his level and accuse him of not putting Country First. I think he just drinks the kool aid His Friends give him.
The only people who have real job security during this Republican assault on the American Dream are the empty-suit political pawns who created it, and the fallen-from-on-high public servants who promise to stay the course. And that is precisely why it's time to show the Republican Party what real job insecurity feels like.
PS: "Republican Assault on the American Dream". Pass it on.
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