Premiere: New Film 'Third Term' John McCain's repeat performance of the Keating 5
By John Amato Thursday Sep 18, 2008 8:45am
I want to thank the the people from Progressive Accountability who have produced the new movie, "Third-Term," which revisits John McCain's role in the Keating 5 scandal of the '80s and see a direct connection to his approach and the people that surround him in today's economy as he runs for President.
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NARRATION: It's the same thing that's happening now, as banks fail, and as our housing market collapses. And the people responsible for this new crisis are the ones McCain has surrounded himself with, men like Phil Gramm and his banking lobbyists. He will offer the same kind of deregulatory policies that led to the banking collapse of the early ‘90s.
It will be available on Sept. 25th to the public.
NARRATION: All of this corporate influence should remind you a bit of a previous tale in the McCain saga, his involvement with the Keating 5. Charles Keating was a sort of mentor of John McCain, donating vast sums of money to his senate campaigns.
DAVID DONNELLY: Charles Keating helped out Senator McCain a lot in the early part of his career. ... Senator McCain was the closest of any of the Keating Five to Charles Keating.
NARRATION: But Keating was in trouble. His company, Lincoln Savings and Loan, was making a lot of risky investments, and the government was investigating.
ANDREA MITCHELL: Keating raised $1.3 million for them. They challenged regulators who were investigating his operations.
NARRATION: So Keating called some of his old pals in the Senate to put a little pressure on the government regulator and get them off his back. McCain accepted.
NARRATION: Lincoln collapsed, leading to a bailout of $2.8 billion in taxpayer money. Keating went to prison for four years. McCain was only chastised on the Senate floor.
The recent meltdown in the financial markets has rocked the country and as usual, required our government to pony up billions of tax payer dollars to try and rescue the corporate fat cats in Wall Street in the financial sector. It was also the reaction to the credit markets that caused the bailout of AIG to occur as swiftly as it did. So John McCain was implicated in the biggest S&L scandal of its time back in '80s --The Keating 5-- and yet HE accuses Barack Obama of not doing enough in today's nightmare. He had the nerve to say this:
JOHN MCCAIN: Senator Obama talks a tough game on the financial markets but the facts tell a very different story. He took more money from Fannie and Freddie than any Senator but the Democratic chairman of the committee that regulates them. He put the Chief Executive Officer of Fannie Mae--um, excuse me, of, yes, of Fannie Mae--who helped create this disaster, he put that Democratic chair--of the-- in charge of the selection process for who he was going to select for Vice President of the United States [crowd boos]. You know what? Fannie's former General Counsel is a senior advisor to his campaign. Whose side do you think he's on?
JOHN MCCAIN: There was no transparency into the books of Wall Street banks. Banks and brokers took on huge amounts of debt and they hid the riskiest of all investments. Mismanagement and greed became the operating standard while regulators were asleep at the switch. The regulators were asleep, my friends. They were not working for you.
Did John McCain --"The DeRegulator," as we call him -- actually say the word "regulators" with a straight face? Many people don't really know or don't remember what the Keating 5 scandal was all about and hopefully, Third Term will help explain a lot and possibly predict the future of our economy if he's elected.
DAVID DONNELLY: ...people who lost life savings through the scandal. There were, people who... pensioners who lost their money because those savings and loans went belly-up.
MITCHELL: Keating became a symbol of the worst financial scandal in history and the worst ethics scandal in the history of the senate.
NARRATION: He did not learn his lesson. The S&L collapse was a failure of adequate regulation, with the banks running wild, making dodgy investments with high risk-high reward margins. If that sounds familiar, it should.
DAVID DONNELLY: Fast-forward twenty years to now, we have a huge mortgage crisis on our hands, it's the result of years and years and years of a deregulatory approach that Senator McCain has supported.
NARRATION: It's the same thing that's happening now, as banks fail, and as our housing market collapses. And the people responsible for this new crisis are the ones McCain has surrounded himself with, men like Phil Gramm and his banking lobbyists. He will offer the same kind of deregulatory policies that led to the banking collapse of the early ‘90s.
CHRISTIAN WELLER: Well, Mr. McCain would take the worst economic policies from the Bush administration and put them on steroids. ... we would get not only the same that we've had for the last seven years, we would get actually the same, just a little degree worse than we had before.
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McCain and his "would-be" Administration are all crooks and liars. Period.
McC(umst)ain: Once a CorpoRat toady, always a CorpoRat toady...
'Nuff said...
Damn that's a killer video and I mean that in a good way.
Didn't a Junior McCV(umst)ain just run away from a collapsing bank just as it went broke?
Andrew? Izzat his name?
Why, yes, yes it is. And yes, yes he did. Runs in the Puke genes, I guess...
Savings and Loan Bailout, $500,000,000,000 Plus, no problem!
Keating 5, at least there where Regulators investigating SOMETHING.
Subprime Meltdown: $2,000,000,000,000 Plus, no problem!
Who needs Regulators?
You need NEW MATH. $2*10 to the 12th.
TWO DOLLARS times ten to the twelfth.
You see, no problem!!!!
How many times?
Reader John writes:
How many times do we have to hear:
We don't have ENOUGH MONEY to fix Social Security.
We don't have ENOUGH MONEY to fix Medicare.
We don't have ENOUGH MONEY to provide health care to ALL Americans.
We don't have ENOUGH MONEY to help out Americans losing their homes.
We don't have ENOUGH MONEY to help all our veterans returning from war.
We don't have ENOUGH MONEY to rescue "no child left behind".
BUT...
We DO HAVE ENOUGH MONEY to bail out Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
We DO HAVE ENOUGH MONEY to bail out Bears Stearns.
We DO HAVE ENOUGH MONEY to bail out AIG.
We DO HAVE ENOUGH MONEY to pay for an unnecessary TRILLION DOLLAR war.
When the LITTLE GUY needs help, they scornfully say, "GET A JOB!"
But when one of their BIG GUY CRONIES need a bailout, what do they say? SURE, NO PROBLEM. Where's the checkbook?
"But what about the debt we're leaving on the backs of our childen and their future?"
"Children? WHOSE Children? OUR children won't have to pay for this. YOUR children will."
The Republicans have had their hands in our pockets for well over 8 years.
Now they are robbing us blind IN BROAD DAYLIGHT and smiling about it!!!!
The Republicans have shown their true colors and now they expect us to vote them back into office?
What's next? Should we bend over and spread 'em? Oh, I'm sorry, but we've ALREADY DONE THAT!!
SEVERAL TIMES!!!
Vote for REAL change this November.
VOTE BLUE!
Don't forget. That was when a billion $$$ was worth a billion $$$... Well almost a billion $$$.
William Proxmire R-WI, may he RIP, in his famous Golden Fleece award use to say: 'A million here, a million there, pretty soon you have real money."
We just keep adding zeroes.
fact:
The Obama campaign has raised close to $10 million from the Wall Street investment houses, nearly 50 percent more than the amount they have given to Republican McCain. Three senior executives at the now bankrupt Lehman Brothers raised more than $1.5 million for the Democrat.
Alice X - (Chomsky Nader) - status quObama - change you can pretend in - @ 8:
Sorry, he was a Dem. Here is his NYT Obit.
Alice X - (Chomsky Nader) - status quObama - change you can pretend in - @ 8:
Actually, the fella who originated that particular bon mot was Everett Dirksen (R-IL--Dec.)
The investment bankers, insurance brokers, and other financial operators have been the biggest contributors to BOTH parties for 50 years.
Obama won't change anything....
required our government to pony up billions of tax payer dollars to try and rescue the corporate fat cats in Wall Street in the financial sector . . .
Try a trillion, as in one thousand billion.
One might think, now that Great Helmsman George W. Bush has nationalized the insurance and mortgage industries, that we will not be hearing so much talk of the Glorious and Omnipotent Free Market in the next few months, at least. I am betting that one would be wrong.
Free Market fundamentalism is a lot like Christian fundamentalism. There are a lot of people out there who actually believe in it -- in the case of Free Market fundamentalism they are mostly hard working drones and mid-level managers in the finance and high tech industries who believed the indoctrination they got in Economics 101 and who enjoy being materially somewhat better off than most of their high school classmates. (For many of them, of course, that's about to change, and we'll see what happens to their faith.)
But in both cases, there are also the political leaders who spout the faith to win their votes. They are generally not so naive as to actually believe in the dogma, nor do they actually implement it as policy. They use it to justify particular policies, but only as it suits them. The reason market fundamentalism, in political terms, has been manifested largely as tax cuts for the wealthy and deregulation of securities markets, but has not led to, say, the elimination of subsidies for agribusiness or the tax breaks for big pickup trucks and SUVs is because wealthy and powerful interests wanted the former and didn't want the latter. It's no-cost for politicians to at least pay lip service to protecting the blastocyst and damning the sodomite, but when it comes to feeding the hungry and clothing the naked and consoling the prisoner, you can forget about it.
Recent events have made it absolutely, incontrovertibly, inescapably, ineluctably clear that there is no such thing as a free market, the very idea is nothing more than fantasy. Even less does anything resembling such a fantasy accomplish "efficiency," or appropriately "allocate resources," or "unleash the creative potential of the economy," or any of the other wonderful stuff it's supposed to accomplish. The function of Free Market ideology is to steal from the poor and give to the rich. That is its only function. It is a crock of shit. Just like creationism. No difference in truth value or social value. Lies intended only to exploit the weak and credulous.
Every time I hear we are bailing out some other institution, I hear a voice saying, Will that be debit or credit?
cervantes @ 13:
Earlier this week Jim Cramer estimated when all is said and done, this will cost us two trillion dollars.
Alice X - (Chomsky Nader) - status quObama - change you can pretend in - @ 8:
America needs to stop adding Zeros to the White House.
Vote Obama.
woody, tokin librul @ 11:
Right you are! Here are some of his quotes.
The 'millions' is stated as 'billions'
I am nostalgic for such seemingly small amounts.
He apparently also had this to say:
And more apropos to the Mortgage Meltdown, because this is exactly what we are doing:
Cervantes Sez (Hey, Cerv, bubba!): Free Market fundamentalism is a lot like Christian fundamentalism. There are a lot of people out there who actually believe in it.
they are similar in that the fundamental premises to which they adhere are fraudulent: there is no such thing as "God" and there is no such thing as "Free markets."
In both cases, there never was and never will exist the single central figment of their 'belief' structure.
Hundreds of billions to be spent and Paulson refuses to take questions and rushes out. Americans are stupid, they let these assholes lie cheat and steal from them. They're gonna let their kids and grandkids pay for it cause they were too stupid to pay attention and get rid of these thieves from our government.
From CNN
"Treasury Secretary Paulson says "hundreds of billions" of dollars are needed to resolve U.S. financial crisis."
Okay everyone! Pony up and donate that money you were going to use to buy groceries so that the fu*king thieves' asses can be covered.
The Socialist Republicans deregulation could cost taxpayers a trillion http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/09/19/bailout-package-congress_n_1276...
woody, tokin librul @ 12:
They keep passing these MASSIVE 'War' funding bills, another one just yesterday.
The Fiscal Suicide now being contemplated to 'solve' the Mortgage Meltdown with the installment plan will lock us in for years to come.
Unless Sarah launches the Nukes in order to see baby jesus.
pissed off patricia @ 20:
No, that is chump change for the top one percent of the country. Let them pay for it.
xoites defends Constitution @ 23:
Sadly we're all going to foot the bill as will god knows how many future generations.
The Constitution of the United States of America
Bill of Rights
Amendment I: Freedom of speech, religion, press, petition and assembly.
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
On this day the 19th of September in the year 2008 we hereby issue an invitation to affix your name upon the petition for a redress of grievances.
"The Use of Taxpayer Monies to Bailout Fraudulent Bankers Shall Be Prohibited"
The Citizens assembled of the Republic of the United States of America hereby declare to the Congress of the same that they shall not continue to raid the People's Treasury to resolve the immoral and illegal practices of lenders and speculators in the Domestic and Foreign Markets. The Moral Hazard of private profits and public losses has resulted in an imbalance in the Treasury creating a deficit that threatens the foundations of this Republic. The duly elected servants of the People have betrayed the trust bestowed upon by the Founding Fathers and signatories of the Constitution of the United States of America by putting financial interests ahead of and to the detriment of the will of The People thereby forfeiting those positions of responsibility. We the signers of this petition strongly protest the fiscal malfeasance of those who have sworn to uphold the laws and protect the interests of The People and call on those individuals who will not cease the illegal raiding of the Treasury to resign forthwith. Those that stand against the tyranny of moneyed interests and with the taxpaying citizens of the Republic are hereby urged to hold fast against the immoral and shameful behavior of those seeking bailouts. We urge all that sign to copy and disseminate this petition as widely as possible throughout the Republic. Together we can restore the People's interests.
The assholes have NO excuse for not giving us a health care system that work for EVERYBODY. Not after they are so willing to spend hundreds of billions of $$$ for these greedy clowns.
pissed off patricia @ 24:
A nice strong progressive tax on the wealthy could change all that.
I still want to know where all the money ended up. Maybe we could recover it.
Think about this;
These financial institutions were leveraged (read borrowning) at THIRTY FIVE
This financial melt down didn't have to happen and it shouldn't have.
This invasion of Iraq didn't have to happen and it shouldn't have.
If only we could turn back time by about eight years and get a fresh start, imagine where we might all be today.
xoites defends Constitution @ 27:
Might start by snooping around in banks in the Cayman Islands.
xoites defends Constitution @ 27:
IT'S YOUR PENSION FUND!
The US Government is in the protection racket.
Excuse me I had a brain fart.
Think about this;
These financial institutions were leveraged (read borrowing) at THIRTY FIVE (35) times what they had as collateral. For a perspective it would be like if you make $50,000 a year (I know, that is highly optimistic for us). At 35 times, you could borrow enough money to buy a $1,750,000 house. Or more realistically a $1,000,000 house and with the other $750,000 you could go clothes shopping. That's what the investment houses did.
@ 26 Captain Bitter Angry Kangaroo Says:
The assholes have NO excuse for not giving us a health care system that work for EVERYBODY. Not after they are so willing to spend hundreds of billions of $$$ for these greedy clowns.
well, as they say about Bombin' Johnnie's underwear, it Depends.
Depends on the difference between one vote (yours) and a couple hundred million dollars (their 'vote').
Nobody in CorpoRat Murka wants universal health care, because it would rob them of one of the fundamental tools the bosses have to enforce 'worker discipline.'
If people no longer needed 'corpoRat paternalism for their care, they'd have lots less reason to endure the (often shitty) conditions under which they typically labor in the CorpoRat sphere.
Anyone who votes Republican this year is exactly like the abused wife who leaves the hospital wrapped in bandages and her arm in a cast and returns to her abuser.
http://gmontage.blip.tv/#1279717
Barkin@#9:
If Obama had rewarded those who support him with promises of getting regulators off their backs like McSame did with Keating, then you might have a point.
But Obama did not so your point is meaningless.
Remember, it's perfectly ok for ANYBODY to donate money to a candidiate. The problem only arises when you start paying the donors back with promises of policies that will benefit the donor only and hose the taxpayers. THAT is what McSame did with Keating and that is a fact.
That's totally Paul Begala doing the narration.
bush will be yammering about this at 10:45 eastern time. If you can bring yourself to watch him.
Might start by snooping around in banks in the Cayman Islands.
That's true. Money which is "lost" never really 'disappears.' It always goes to someone.
Jusker @ 34:
From my standpoint, it is the Republicrats that are to blame.
Deregulation means there are no rules. No rules result in greed and insanity. Folks, that's what we will be paying for, the mess the crooks made while there were no rules, everyone took as much money as they wanted and insanity was the norm.
Keating Scandal, S&L crash, what do they have in common?
Didn't GW's brother Neal make out big in the S&L crash? Now we have a huge government bailout. I think GW is getting his share of the money! I heard that congress will try to get the money out fast, and may not have an oversight in place being giving out the money.
So free money given out to "victims" by the GW admin. Sounds good, oh wait 12 billion unaccounted for in Iraq. No questions asked no oversight. 100s of thousands lost in Katrina (via the "debit card scam") They blamed the victims in both cases, while the biggest abusers were GW connected.
McCain was in Keating, but GW was too. He's getting off in both cases, and it stinks of him big time!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
woody, tokin librul @ 39:
And it goes where it can't be traced. We all know where the money went, and we know who got it. It came to earth attached to golden parachutes for some and others just grabbed it and ran.
pissed off patricia @ 43:
Cayman Isalnds, that's soooo 90's. Haliburton is in Dubai. The Arabian money shuffle doesn't track records. Dubai is the new Cayman, the new Swiss Bank Accounts!
Let's bring up Tea-pot dome and Tammany Hall too.
The hoi polloi don't give a crap about those either.
Alice X - (Chomsky Nader) - status quObama - change you can pretend in - @ 40:
When has Obama ever expressed a positive interest in "trickle down?"
Alice X - (Chomsky Nader) - status quObama - change you can pretend in - @ 40:
No, it was the Dempublicans.
Captain Bitter Angry Kangaroo @ 32:
Seems like most of the real estate transactions in SoCal and South Florida.
Not a dime, not one god damn red cent, to this companies, none, nada,bupkis. Failure is a part of life as well as business, let them die and have the people that invested in them go down with it. The Dow Jones has been filled with companies that no longer exist, in fact only one company is left of the original 40, GE. Take every bit of that money and use it for the people that were taken advantge of, oh hell, who were ripped off by these companies and give it to them. When you by stock you take the risk and the fact that you put your trust in to people that didnt deserve it, you take the penelty. No more bailouts, jail time for those that broke the laws, and start the movement to grow industry and services that invest in growing the income of Americans and not the portfolios of the elite few, very few, of Wall street.
I always thought they would bring out McKeating's role in the Keating scandel, but not too early so as to keep it fresh in the minds of the voters. This is the perfect time. It must be done in a way to put him on the defensive and made to explain what he did AND what he learned by it which is obviously nothing. He is a phucin snake liar scum and it WILL come out.
woody, tokin librul @ 39:
Much of this money existed only on paper.
That is what a 'Bubble' is.
Speculation that house prices would go up and up was self fulfilling and the prices went up.
Easy credit for people who could not really afford the inflated prices allowed them to secure mortgages for houses that were over priced.
As long as prices actually rose this was not so much of a problem.
The credit terms with adjustable rates held balloon payment increases. Three, four, five years in they were socked with big note jumps. The prices of houses were falling so, suddenly, they had negative equity and payments they couldn't make.
Whammo, foreclosure.
Meanwhile the people that made the loans had their profit up front and sold the loans in funny packages probably making another profit.
Those folks have skipped off down the road.
Now other people are holding that funny paper, like our pension funds. They are going broke because the credit is dried up and the ponzi scheme is going bust.
We can watch our pension funds go down or we can further the ponzi scheme by borrowing the money and transferring the debt to the future.
It is a protection racket.
At some point we will run out of time.
Then we bring on the NUKES and Sarah can look for baby jesus.
Can someone help me out? I would like to make a donation to 527's standing up for renewable energy and would support Obama's plan. Does anyone know which group is making commercials in swing states on this issue? Also, are donations to 527's eligible for tax deductions? (I would easily consider donating to 527's on other issues besides the environment, such as the economy, equity issues, education, etc so please send some suggestions!) Thanks.
Paulson says rescue plan to cost hundreds of billions:
http://money.cnn.com/2008/09/19/news/economy/paulson/index.htm?postversi...
Better get a printin'...
Jusker @ 46:
Ok, so his advisors aren't Keynesian nutbags, but they aren't exactly change merchants either:
"Austan Goolsbee: U. of Chicago neoclassicist and “Sicko” critic; David Cutler: Harvard economist who believes that high health costs are good for the economy; Jeffrey Liebman: another Harvard economist and former Clinton adviser who favors privatizing social security."
Wake up and smell the neoclassic bamboozle.
Johnny2Bad @ 54:
I'll check these out, thanks. All the same, I will be voting for Obama/Biden and not Palin/McCain.
fastfeat @ 53:
Yep. And look who is standing around Paulsen holding the ink.
Jusker @ 55:
'Bout all we can do but the lesser of evils is still evil.
Here's an interesting article for ya'll to chew on:
http://www.webofdebt.com/articles/its_the_derivatives.php
And a quote here from the above article:
"Proposals for reforming the banking system are not even on the radar screen of Prime Time politics today; but the current system is collapsing at train-wreck speed, and the “change” called for in Washington may soon be taking a direction undreamt of a few years ago. We need to stop funding the culprits who brought us this debacle at our expense. We need a public banking system that makes a cost-effective credit mechanism available for homeowners, manufacturing, renewable energy, and infrastructure; and the first step to making it cost-effective is to strip out the swarms of gamblers, fraudsters and profiteers now gaming the system." Ellen Brown, J.D.
We know we will never hear this from Palin/McCain. What troubles me is that I don't believe we will ever hear it from Obama/Biden or any Democrats currently in Congress either.
Sad, but true. We've been had.
Don't look now but the market is moving back up to where it was before this disaster. So, four or more "giant" banking institutions fail, there's a hiccup in the markets , over 2 trillion in taxpayer money is used to right the ship and everyone goes back to business as usual.
This is no different than a frat boy losing his shirt in Vegas and phoning Mom to wire him more money. Eventually Mom will be living on the street and frat boy will pretend he doesn't know her .
McPaleo is part of the problem. If Elected he and prevaricating Sarah are elected, we can count on four more years of War, deceit, bad economy, destruction of the Constitution and Religion forced upon us.
Can that happen? ........ The Idiot Fringe plus the Moron factor probably add up to 38% of the population, that and the women who might vote just because of a chromosomal difference .... well, you get the picture.
iraqconcilable @ 59:
Geez, don't you feel better since you own part of a huge Insurance Corporation and a Loan Company. Wake up and smell the
RosesHorseshit.Abbybwood @ 58:
Here is a perspective for you on the failed economic policies of the GOP that have led to this financial disaster...
Harry Truman asked the same questions that you did to the American people in 1948:
http://www.buzzflash.com/editorial/05/01/edi05006.html
If you want to call Reagan a genius, as the Republicons do, it was that he "put lipstick on a pig" and sold the same old formula back to the American people and got them to act against their own economic interest.
Now we can see clearly what it produces... as the scripture says... "Ye shall know them by their fruits" and this fruit is rotten to the core!
Abbybwood @ 58:
And it won't end with Obama. This from a great Harpers article on Obama from November of '06:
"Obama immediately established a “leadership PAC,” a vehicle through which a member of Congress can contribute to other politicians’ campaigns—and one that political reform groups generally view as a slush fund through which congressional leaders can evade campaign-finance rules while raising their own political profiles. The top contributors are corporate law and lobbying firms, Wall Street financial houses (Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan Chase), and big Chicago interests (Henry Crown and Company, an investment firm that has stakes in industries ranging from telecommunications to defense)...big donors would not be helping out Obama if they didn’t see him as a “player.” The lobbyist added: “What’s the dollar value of a starry-eyed idealist?”
"Had" indeed.
iraqconcilable @ 59:
It is a Ponzi scheme. We are giving the addicts their fix. They are back in business, the market is up.
It they hadn't gotten their fix they would have gone cold turkey and the market would have gone bust.
There are two things that drive the market. GREED AND FEAR.
We are putting Trillions in to ease their Fear and reward their Greed.
The US Government is in the PROTECTION RACKET BUSINESS.
Hey. let's just settle down, forget about the collapse and watch a game with our good buddy... More Americans agree.
Johnny2Bad @ 63:
If you go to opensecrets.org you will find that the investment banks gave heavily to everyone in Washington and most heavily to the GOP politicians. They spread their money around to everyone.
Obama isn't perfect but he is a damn sight better than McCain with a 26 year record of whoring it up from the Keating Five scandals to his "I'm a deregulator" label that he has used for decades.
♠♠...Bangkok Bob...♠♠ @ 61:
I'd feel much better if they handled automotive loans and would insure a single person with 10+ points on his record...
A historical perspective....
http://www.buzzflash.com/editorial/05/01/edi05006.html
The situation hasn't changed... it is the same as in the Great Depression and we as a nation have been here before.
Ronald Reagan's "trickle down" and "supply side" economics were called Voodoo economics at the time... and they were right.
One needs only look at what the "free markets" produced in the free for all that happened in the hedge funds to see that markets do not regulate themselves.
Suddenly we see the "government is not the solution, its the problem" crowd crying for bailouts and even McCain is asking for more regulations.
If you want to call Reagan a genius, as the Republicons do, it was that he “put lipstick on a pig” and sold the same old formula back to the American people and got them to act against their own economic interest.
Now we can see clearly what it produces… as the scripture says… “Ye shall know them by their fruits” and this fruit is rotten to the core!
Rasputin @ 66:
Yep. He's certainly not perfect. Though Obama hasn't provided any numbers to CRP but they have other sources:
"Obama's list gives the appearance that he has not leaned so heavily on bundlers working on Wall Street, although since his campaign has ignored repeated requests from the Center for Responsive Politics and other watchdog groups to disclose his bundlers' employers and occupations, these figures are probably undercounts.
The securities and investment industry is Obama's second-largest source of bundlers, after lawyers, and at least 56 individuals have raised at least $8.9 million for his campaign. Bundlers in the larger finance, insurance and real estate sector have collected at least $13.4 million for Obama, making it his most generous sector." Executives at Lehman Brothers, Credit Suisse and Goldman Sachs (Obama's number-one donor) are also in the mix.
Overall, the securities and investment industry has contributed about $10 million to Obama and $7 million to McCain."CPR. "Bundlers for McCain, Obama Are Among Wall Street's Tumblers"
No, you're right...he's not perfect. But he is definitely not "a damn sight better".
jeff @ 49:
In a sense the stock holders have lost. AIG is at $3.10 now. It was at 60 a year ago. The main guy at Bear Sterns lost around $800,000,000. Lehman is at $.13. Also a lot if not most or all of the people who work for Bear and Lehman and the others were forced to put their money into the company stock.
If AIG was forced to disappear it would have been worse for the entire world. Lehman, not so much, so it was allowed to disappear, more or less. I think they figured out that bailing out Bear Sterns was a mistake but they did it to try to stop the negative reaction.
They should have just stopped the short selling as they are doing now. It is very complicated. The short sellers are/were a huge reason for the failures but these and all the investment houses that have failed and are going to fail and all the rest of them used short selling as a way to make huge $$$ so if they played with fire they got burnt.
Having said all that, make no mistake, I am not defending them. There are many many people who made a shitload of cake. They ripped off the system. They are going to get away with it. They should all go to jail in a just world. Maybe some will but don’t bet on it. These people are lower than a snake’s ass but you know what? They don’t care.
A good commercial would be to start with footage of the Great Depression, find a Herbert Hoover quote (match one up with McCain or Gramm). Then follow with FDR footage coming in to rebuild the smoldering mess that was left.
Punch line: Who do we want to oversee the rebuildings of our financial system: McCain who helped remove FDR's firewalls and thinks the Fundametals are strong, or Barack Obama?
republican bottom line: 'I got mine,screw you,and god bless America (but no one else).
"I fully support the efforts of Paulson and Bernanke" -Obama...two minutes ago. Flanked by Robert Rubin.
What a good soldier for CitiGroup and Goldmabn Sachs.
Johnny2Bad @ 73:
And the choices are? Bush et al presented the nation with a fait accompli. Railing and decrying at this point isn't going to help. Pundits want Obama to come out with a specific, comprehensive plan to save this whole thing, and, yeah, it should fit on a bumper sticker. Have some patience. (Spoken as one who lives in ag country and the price of ag land has just gone through the barn roof; the market in ag land moves contrary to Wall Street.)
What would Zeus do? Says thats a great idea ! but i knew FDR and obamas no FDR!
Bernie Sanders, on Thom Hartmann:
"If it's too big to fail, it's too big."
Johnny2Bad @ 73:
He has to support these guys. They are the ones who are suppose to know and get it right. These guys understand this crap. What the hell is Obama going to do? If he said he didn't support these guys he would be stepping in a huge lie of doo doo.
Let us not forget the McCain's second wife and her father were
also deeply involved in the Keating scam. This is why McCain
himself didn't take more heat for what he did.
To be 100% clear, she is at least as big a crook as he is.
By the way, you can expect the Resoultion Trust Corporation
to reappear any day now..... How soon we forget, eh? All
this seems just like yesterday to me.
fastfeat @ 76:
This is a true staement. It has to be broken up. That is a very good benchmark to staart from. Go through these companies and if it is determined that they are too big to fail make them sell off until they get smaller. This is a very good starting point.
Johnny2Bad @ 69:
As I pointed out Obama isn't perfect, but to your assertion that McPain is better lets take a look... eh?
Using your source... here they are side by side...
John McCain (R)
Bundlers
Securities & Investment........$11,350,000
Real Estate...........................$9,500,000
Lobbyists..............................$6,250,000
Lawyers/Law Firms.................$4,900,000
Misc Finance.........................$4,500,000
Barack Obama (D)
Bundlers
Lawyers/Law Firms...............$11,700,000
Securities & Investment..........$8,900,000
TV/Movies/Music....................$3,150,000
Computers/Internet.................$2,150,000
Business Services ...................$2,100,000
John McCain (R)
Bundlers
http://www.opensecrets.org/pres08/bundlers.php?id=N00006424
So from your own source you can see that McPain has not only taken more money from the the Investment banks than Obama, but McPain is up to his eyeballs in cash from the Real Estate industry while Obama hasn't gotten any significant funds from them.
But that's not why Obama is better than McPain...
Obama doesn't have a campaign staff composed of the largest lobbyist in Washington and McCain does... fat chance that they are there to put themselves out of business.
McCain has "Foreclosure Phil" Gramm as his economic adviser and chief architect of his financial plans. Gramm of course wrote the Financial Services Modernization Act of 1999 that made the Subprime meltdown and the credit crunch and bank failures possible.
McCain is a Classic Reagan "Trickle Down"... government is the enemy "Deregulator"... until the market collapses and then he is all for bailouts and more regulation... despite a 26 year history of pushing that agenda... until this week!
McCain's Tax plan gives the most to the top .01% of Americans, While Obama's plan give the most to the middle class and cuts taxes for 85% of American households.
McCain has a history of doing the financial sectors bidding... The Keating Five Scandals!
Yeah... Obama is better by a long shot!
OBAMA MAKE... A... KEATING...5 AD
Seriously. Even the most recent attack ads Obama has put out have been tame.
Take the friggen gloves off already.
Per Wiki:
Silverado Savings and Loan
"Silverado Savings and Loan collapsed in 1988, costing taxpayers $1.3 billion. Neil Bush, son of then Vice President of the United States George H. W. Bush, was Director of Silverado at the time. Neil Bush was accused of giving himself a loan from Silverado, but he denied all wrongdoing. [2]
The US Office of Thrift Supervision investigated Silverado's failure and determined that Neil Bush had engaged in numerous "breaches of his fiduciary duties involving multiple conflicts of interest." Although Bush was not indicted on criminal charges, a civil action was brought against him and the other Silverado directors by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation; it was eventually settled out of court, with Bush paying $50,000 as part of the settlement, as reported in the Washington Post [10].
As a director of a failing thrift, Bush voted to approve $100 million in what were ultimately bad loans to two of his business partners. And in voting for the loans, he failed to inform fellow board members at Silverado Savings & Loan that the loan applicants were his business partners.[citation needed]
Neil Bush paid a $50,000 fine and was banned from banking activities for his role in taking down Silverado, which cost taxpayers $1.3 billion. A Resolution Trust Corporation Suit against Bush and other officers of Silverado was settled in 1991 for $26.5 million."
All the usual suspects!
Rasputin @ 80:
If your point is that $8.9 million from investment bankers is somehow "not as bad" as $11.3 million from those same people looking for favors this very day, I concede that narrow fact.
But to suggest that Obama is not beholden to the same greedy cabal is naive in the extreme. Not more than a hour ago he declared that he "fully supports" the Paulsen/Bernanke bailout with Citigroup's Robert Rubin by his side.
Is there something there I'm missing?
This little fragment had me spewing coffee all over my keyboard!! Hilarious!!
Bill Maher's new rule! I'm not giving away the punchline but you'll be in stitches!!!
HAHAHAHAHAHHAAAAA!!!!!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dk7JN__R-Q8
Rasputin @ 80:
BTW...Two things.
-You quoted CRP stats first so its really your source, not mine.
-If you can show where I asserted "McCain is better"...I'd love to see it.
Johnny2Bad @ 84:
Johnny...
You really need to pay more attention to what you are cut and pasting...
1. Open Secrets.org is the Center for Responsive Politics which is clearly stated in the article that you posted... not me! So there is the source that YOU are citing.
2. You stated, "No, you're right...he's not perfect. But he is definitely not "a damn sight better" Which you can make the semantic argument that you are saying that Obama is "just as bad" as McCain... but since you didn't have full disclosure with McCain's information next to Obama's to do a comparison side by side... that is disingenuous to say the least.
3. You ignored the points I made on why Obama is better than McPain to refute your usual argument that they are the same which they are clearly not.
This was a standard ploy made by the GOP stooges in 2000, that there was little difference between Gore and Bush. As we can see now in hindsight... there clearly was!
The Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (Gramm is a McCain economic advisor btw) effectively repealed the Glass-Steagall Act, opening up competition and blatant conflict of interests among banks, securities companies and insurance companies, causing today's mess, GOP voted for it 44-1, Dems against it 39-0: http://www.govtrack.us/congress/vote.xpd?vote=s1999-105
Big Dan @ 86:
The Republicon trolls have been trying to lay blame for this on the Dems and Clinton as he signed the act that Gramm wrote into law.
They leave out two critical pieces of information though:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glass-Steagall_Act
1. The legislation was "Veto Proof" under the accepted rules of that congress. Clinton's signature was entirely irrelevant... it was going to become law any way.
2. The GOP controlled both houses of congress and vote broke according to party lines... the GOP owns this one!
The Savings and Loan crisis of the late 1980s and early 1990s (cost $2.8 Billion) looks like a walk in the park compared to the mortgage / investment / banking crisis we face today, estimated to cost taxpayers $2 TRILLION.
Noah @ 89:
Here is a paper the cost of the 'Savings and Loan Crises'. The 2.8 billion cited here is Keating's Lincoln S&L, just his share. From 1986-1995 there were 1,043 Thrifts with assets of over 500 Billion that failed. The loss to the taxpayer was something around 125 billion.
You are right, today's swindle is much bigger.
One ponzi scheme after another.
Thanks for citing the correction. $125 billion in 1988, doubled for inflation, would be $250 billion today. That's about 1/8 of the projected cost of this bailout.
Bail-out hands Pimco $1.7bn payday
McCain, the self-proclaimed deregulator was trying to inluence, get this, the S&L regulators. Now, flip-flop McCain says he will bring change, he will regulate. After 26 years? A leopard doens't change spots. His age spots won't change, only get bigger. Some will morp into cancer. It's probably aleady in his small brain.
Rasputin @ 86:
1. re: CRP. Oh I'm paying attention. Yes, I did go to CRP...but after you posted this:
Rasputin @ 66:
"If you go to opensecrets.org you will find that the investment banks gave heavily to everyone in Washington and most heavily to the GOP politicians. They spread their money around to everyone. Obama isn't perfect but he is a damn sight better than McCain with a 26 year record of whoring it up from the Keating Five scandals to his "I'm a deregulator" label that he has used for decades."
You brought up CRP first. I referenced your source. Yours.
2. re: Who's "better" mistatement. "Disingenuous" indeed. I never have said McCain was "better" as you allege. You can't find that anywhere because I never said, hinted nor "asserted" that, ever. That doesn't change the fact that they are both in the back pocket of the people who gave them millions of dollars. Both of them. This is a sad fact that Obama supporters understandably have a hard time swallowing: Their man (who said he's 95% in agreement with Hillary) is in fact a triangulating corporate whore. The response to that (as you so ably demonstrate) is always the same: "McCain is worse" and "There's no other choice".
Well, no shit.
Doesn't mean we roll over and stop holding every politician's feet to the fire. Even Obama's. If you expect cheerleading and "Yes We Can" from me you got the wrong guy. I don't trust either of these guys. No, let me rephrase....I don't trust any of them.
Johnny2Bad @ 93:
1. re: CRP. Oh I'm paying attention. Yes, I did go to CRP...but after you posted this:
Rasputin @ 66:
"If you go to opensecrets.org you will find that the investment banks gave heavily to everyone in Washington and most heavily to the GOP politicians. They spread their money around to everyone. Obama isn't perfect but he is a damn sight better than McCain with a 26 year record of whoring it up from the Keating Five scandals to his "I'm a deregulator" label that he has used for decades."
You brought up CRP first. I referenced your source. Yours.
2. re: Who's "better" mistatement. "Disingenuous" indeed. I never have said McCain was "better" as you allege. You can't find that anywhere because I never said, hinted nor "asserted" that, ever. That doesn't change the fact that they are both in the back pocket of the people who gave them millions of dollars. Both of them. This is a sad fact that Obama supporters understandably have a hard time swallowing: Their man (who said he's 95% in agreement with Hillary) is in fact a triangulating corporate whore. The response to that (as you so ably demonstrate) is always the same: "McCain is worse" and "There's no other choice".
Well, no shit.
Doesn't mean we roll over and stop holding every politician's feet to the fire. Even Obama's. If you expect cheerleading and "Yes We Can" from me you got the wrong guy. I don't trust either of these guys. No, let me rephrase....I don't trust any of them.
Johnny2Bad @ 93:
1. re: CRP. Oh I'm paying attention. Yes, I did go to CRP...but after you posted this:
Rasputin @ 66:
"If you go to opensecrets.org you will find that the investment banks gave heavily to everyone in Washington and most heavily to the GOP politicians. They spread their money around to everyone. Obama isn't perfect but he is a damn sight better than McCain with a 26 year record of whoring it up from the Keating Five scandals to his "I'm a deregulator" label that he has used for decades."
You brought up CRP first. I referenced your source. Yours.
2. re: Who's "better" mistatement. "Disingenuous" indeed. I never have said McCain was "better" as you allege. You can't find that anywhere because I never said, hinted nor "asserted" that, ever. That doesn't change the fact that they are both in the back pocket of the people who gave them millions of dollars. Both of them. This is a sad fact that Obama supporters understandably have a hard time swallowing: Their man (who said he's 95% in agreement with Hillary) is in fact a triangulating corporate whore. The response to that (as you so ably demonstrate) is always the same: "McCain is worse" and "There's no other choice".
Well, no shit.
Doesn't mean we roll over and stop holding every politician's feet to the fire. Even Obama's. If you expect cheerleading and "Yes We Can" from me you got the wrong guy. I don't trust either of these guys. No, let me rephrase....I don't trust any of them.
This is the only thing that you have said that I can agree with...
John Adams wrote this in his journal...
Later when he became President he passed the Sedition Act... proving that even he could not be trusted with the public liberty.
So to your point that we should trust no politician... I whole heartedly agree. Our politicians will only be as good as We The People hold them to be... it is up to us.
At the same time though... there is a far cry difference between Obama and McPain and I would see us set a new course from the failed policies of the Reagan administration and his voodoo economics that the wheels just fell off for all the world to see.
And as I pointed out previously...
Right now Obama is the only game in town that has a chance of stopping the self destructive course we have been on....
After he is elected... we will have to watch him and all the members of the congress and hold them accountable. They will be as good as we demand them to be.
fact:
The Obama campaign has raised close to $10 million from the Wall Street investment houses, nearly 50 percent more than the amount they have given to Republican McCain. Three senior executives at the now bankrupt Lehman Brothers raised more than $1.5 million for the Democrat
Let us be fair....Senator Obama's contributions come from INDIVIDUALS, employees, regular people. John McCain gets his directly from PAC's and direct Corporate contributions.
Big difference.
Let's be fair....Senator Obama's contributions come from INDIVIDUALS, employees, regular people. John McCain got his from PAC's and direct Corporate contributions.
Big difference.
Where are the angry people who were affected by the Lincoln Savings collapse?
Wouldn't they be GREAT starring in Anti-McCain commercials?
When I lived in Phoenix, AZ I worked for Lincoln Thrift in my high school years part time making $1.25 an hour in 1970-71. My boss went to jail years later over this, but I can't remember his last name. I used to babysit his kid Parker and do their grocery shopping. I was fired one day for hitting a drunk driver after leaving the bank (I was sent to make deposits). We did give blue chip stamps with your deposit's though. Ha! All this has stirred up the memories that were buried so deep!
Rasputin @ 94:
Agreed. BTW, thanks for the refreshingly civil discussion. Makes it fun when you're actually talking about real stuff (policy and position) instead of insult and name-calling.
TruthTeller @ 95:
Not really. "Bundling" is a way around all that messy reporting stuff.
"Bundlers are those wealthy individuals who hit up their coworkers, family and friends to raise hundreds of thousands of dollars, in addition to any contributions from their own pockets."
"According to the Washington Post, "seventy-nine 'bundlers,' five of them billionaires, have tapped their personal networks to raise at least $200,000 each. They have helped the (Obama) campaign recruit more than 27,000 donors to write checks for $2,300, the maximum allowed. Donors who have given more than $200 account for about half of Obama's total haul, which stands at nearly $240 million." -Center for Responsive Politics
So...Its a dirty little secret niether side likes to talk about. Especially when they give lip service to the "parallel public financing system" meme.
Johnny2Bad @ 99:
Agreed. BTW, thanks for the refreshingly civil discussion. Makes it fun when you're actually talking about real stuff (policy and position) instead of insult and name-calling.
Eh... I was putting you in the same category as Dennis for a while, but I started to realize that we have a some common ideas... ya shit... sorry relapse! ;-)
Johnny2Bad @ 100:
Both of them have taken lots of dough from bundlers and the election is so close that its not going to change either. Its their funds for not only ads, but the ground game in every state to get out the vote.
After the amount of cash that has been raised in this election I shudder to think about the next election and you are right... after it is over we will have to watch for quid pro quo for every elected official, not just the President.
More than 30 years ago Marshal Mcluhan said, "the method by which we elect our leaders ruins them by the time they get elected." It is still true today, but the consequences are even more apparent and dire...
http://www.opensecrets.org/news/2008/09/bundlers-for-mccain-obama-are.html
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