Phil Gramm: McCain’s Terrorist In Pinstripes
There is a ticking time bomb in the John McCain campaign and the sooner that Barack Obama can turn his full attention to exploiting it the bigger and consequential the explosion should be for this phony maverick.
The presumptive Republican nominee supposedly swore off lobbyists after the Keating Five scandal nearly destroyed his political career, but they continue to have him by the short and curlies.
Phil Gramm, who is co-chair of McCain’s campaign, is not just another lobbyist. He is the man most responsible for the repeal of Depression-era banking regulations that have led directly and inextricably to much of today’s economic turmoil, and parlayed that classic example of legislative legerdemain into a lucrative lobbying career for the very people who scratched the smug Texan’s back — as well as McCain’s — on Capitol Hill.
Gramm was the biggest of the big guns behind the 1999 repeal of the banking regulations — the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act — which was officially called The Financial Services Modernization Act. (Don’t you just love the name!)
Passage of the law was greased with an astonishing $300 million in lobbying money, and it encountered little opposition other than from those old-fashioned banks that actually insure your deposits, while receiving the enthusiastic blessing of the Bill and Hillary Clinton co-presidency. And you had better believe that the so hands-on First Lady was all for it.
One of many consequences of the repeal was that a year later the Swiss bank UBS gobbled up brokerage house Paine Weber. A year after that, Gramm settled in as a vice chairman of UBS’s new investment banking arm and has since energetically lobbied Congress, the Federal Reserve and the Treasury Department on banking and mortgage issues.
This has included rolling back state rules that sought to stem the rise of predatory tactics used by lenders and brokers that led directly to the subprime mortrage meltdown, which cost USB more than $19 billion in writedowns this week and the prospect of massive job cuts.
McCain and Gramm go way back.
In 1992, the two worked closely as senators to defeat Hillary Clinton’s 1993 health care plan, and in 1996 McCain was national chairman of Gramm’s unsuccessful presidential run.
In 2002, as the full extent of the Enron scandal was emerging, The New York Times called Gramm “a demon for deregulation” as one of the chief engineers of the stealthy approval of a bill that exempted energy commodity trading from government regulation and public disclosure. (Link disabled.)
Meanwhile, Gramm’s wife Wendy was paid over $1 million in salary, stock options, dividends and other goodies from 1993 to 2001 as an Enron board member, but of course was deaf, dumb and blind to the energy company’s rampant cooking its books with the acquiescence of the late unlamented Arthur Andersen accounting company.
The result was economic ruin for thousands of families.
We can be certain that even more wrack and ruin will be in the offing with a McCain presidency. This includes more of the Rich Come First economic voodoo that the Bush administration has visited upon Main Street while Wall Street investment banks got fat and happy until their greed bit them in their collective ass and they had to come begging for taxpayer bailouts. Which of course they are getting, no (serious) questions asked.
Considering the pain and suffering that Gramm’s masterwork has caused ordinary Americans, it is not hyperbolic to say that he is a terrorist, he just doesn’t wear funny looking headgear and carry a Kalashikov.
McCain acknowledges that he’s “no expert” and “doesn’t understand” the economy. That is worrisome enough, but that he is relying on a terrorist in pinstripes to figure things out for him is . . . well, terrifying.
20 Responses to “Phil Gramm: McCain’s Terrorist In Pinstripes”
[...] Unique-Article-Database.com â?? Unique Articles for Your Information and Web Site Content Need… wrote an interesting post today onHere’s a quick excerpt There is a ticking time bomb in the John McCain campaign and the sooner that Barack Obama can turn his full attention to exploiting it the bigger and consequential the explosion should be for this phony maverick. The presumptive Republican nominee supposedly swore off lobbyists after the Keating Five scandal nearly destroyed his political career, but they continue to have him by the short and curlies. Phil Gramm, who is co-chair of McCain’s campaign, is not just another lobbyist. He is the [...]
[...] BloggingStocks wrote an interesting post today onHere’s a quick excerpt There is a ticking time bomb in the John McCain campaign and the sooner that Barack Obama can turn his full attention to exploiting it the bigger and consequential the explosion should be for this phony maverick. The presumptive Republican nominee supposedly swore off lobbyists after the Keating Five scandal nearly destroyed his political career, but they continue to have him by the short and curlies. Phil Gramm, who is co-chair of McCain’s campaign, is not just another lobbyist. He is the [...]
[...] The Moderate Voice – Domestic and international news analysis, irreverent comments, original reporti… wrote an interesting post today on Phil Gramm: McCainâ??s Terrorist In PinstripesHere’s a quick excerpt There is a ticking time bomb in the John McCain campaign and the sooner that Barack Obama can turn his full attention to exploiting it the bigger and consequential the explosion should be for this phony maverick. The presumptive Republican nominee supposedly swore off lobbyists after the Keating Five scandal nearly destroyed his political career, but they continue to have him by the short and curlies. Phil Gramm, who is co-chair of McCain’s campaign, is not just another lobbyist. He is the [...]
“Terrorist”–?
Isn't the real story bad enough?
[...] The Moderate Voice – Domestic and international news analysis, irreverent comments, original reporti… wrote an interesting post today on Phil Gramm: McCainâ??s Terrorist In PinstripesHere’s a quick excerpt There is a ticking time bomb in the John McCain campaign and the sooner that Barack Obama can turn his full attention to exploiting it the bigger and consequential the explosion should be for this phony maverick. The presumptive Republican nominee supposedly swore off lobbyists after the Keating Five scandal nearly destroyed his political career, but they continue to have him by the short and curlies. Phil Gramm, who is co-chair of McCain’s campaign, is not just another lobbyist. He is the [...]
It seems that when we add up the damage from favors to special interests a publicly financed campaign system that promotes objective and pragmatic decision making seems like a bargain.
Great reporting Shaun. I hope this story gets the coverage it deserves.
[...] the so-called Moderate Voice, Sean Mullen has an interesting concept of terrorism. Former Sen. Phil Gramm, now an adviser to John [...]
Okay, so maybe Mullen could get more moderate than that. For example, Mullen could have noted that the Financial Services Modernization Act was signed into law by then-Pres. Bill Clinton. Mullen could have noted that Obama, like Hillary Clinton, has taken plenty of campaign cash from the main players in the subprime-mortgage industry. Mullen also could have told his readers that Obama economic adviser Austan Goolsbee has defended the deregulation of mortgage lending on the op-ed page of the New York Times. Mullen might even have pointed readers to Gramm’s response to the charge.
Mullen chose not to do any of those things because the the tagline for “The Moderate Voice” really should be “Moderate, but reliably Lefty.” And once you have chosen to mislead people as to who you are, the rest follows naturally.
http://proteinwisdom.com/?p=11707
I used to visit here under another name a long time ago and really enjoyed Joe's truly moderate take on things. He even linked me in his sidebar back then.
My, what a turn this place as taken. Calling Phil Gramm a terrorist is moderate? Let's leave aside all the problems with the post in general – Protein Wisdom lays those out better than I could. No, let's just talk about someone – anyone – comparing the actions of a US Senator to those of real terrorists.
Despicable to say the least. The very least.
Joe, you don't have to take my advice of course, but I would rethink having this guy post here. What he said is shameful.
snort Thanks for your wisdom. The comments at PW are moderate(?) and intelligent(?).
Good misdirect.
This blog is called The Moderate Voice. I assumed that that meant the posts would reflect reasoned, moderate points of view. This post is anything but, and no amount of misdirection will change that fact.
But, hey, it's been a long time since I visited and I guess things have changed. More is the pity.
[...] the recent expositional piece by Shaun Mullen of The Moderate Voice on McCain’s campaign co-chair, Phil Gramm, this should be a no-brainer. Phil Gramm, who is [...]
Karl's piece criticizing this website at protein wisdom ignores the larger ramifications of Gramm's continued dishonesty and corruption. His wife and him were deeply involved in the Enron fiasco for example. Gramm is an ultra right wing financial guy who's been destructive to the middle class in many ways such as supporting further regressivity of the tax structure; politicizing financial laws to further the interests of the already well-to-do, and generally just seems a scummy person in my eyes.
Selectively ignoring the Gramm's involvement in Enron is dishonest…but the fact that both Obama and Clinton are somewhat affiliated with Gramm's sort of people is discouraging, but McCain should know better but doesn't. Gramm as President mimics President Hoover in not ponying up to the crisis that's hit the middle class which is far larger than the sub prime crisis: falling incomes, increased fixed costs esp. from dishonest mortgage holders, and the inflationary spiral due to bail outs of major wall street firms (who should have been regulated), printing of more money to fund the various wars Bush et al have subjected us to…in general not a pretty picture for the middle class due to the economic terrorism promulgated by the likes of Gramm.
McCain as Gramm, whatever….
Well… I wouldn't go so far as to call Gramm a terrorist, but I see Shaun's point- that his actions over many years continually cause the lives of many people to be destroyed.
What Shaun is pointing out is that Gramm has consistently supported laws that have proved detrimental to this country. It's one thing for Clinton and others, including Obama's economic adviser, to support deregulation- and a case can be made for deregulation. Perhaps it went too far and we need to re-examine it, especially if Wall Street corporations expect government guarantees to rescue them when they get into trouble. Certainly Bush has supported deregulation and has this laissez-faire attitude so our current problems are caused by government actions beyond the passage of the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, signed into law by Clinton.
At the end of the day perhaps we all have some responsibility towards the current economic conditions- after all the American public knew that Bush had a hands-off policy towards business and voters knew that Bush wouldn't help them out as individuals if they ran into problems… if voters wanted a different direction then they could have voted for politicians with a different philosophy.
At any rate, whatever actions others may have taken to play a role in the current conditions, Shaun (I think- at least this is the way I interpret it) is arguing that people should understand that McCain is getting major advice from Gramm- someone with a hand (well, his whole body) in the current crises and that Gramm's philosophy has proven tragically flawed many times over many years.
Shaun might have mentioned how others contributed to our current crises- and the list would be long. But the posting wasn't to explore the many factors that went into the making of the the mess we're in. The point of the posting was to point out how one individual with a flawed philosophy that hasn't changed over the last couple of decades has been more influential than most in shaping the policies that have gotten us to this point.
If we want to move beyond our current political philosophy( and direction of the country) then McCain should not be in bed with Gramm whose beliefs have put us in this mess and that Gramm has not shown any inclination to change his firmly held beliefs. In fact last week McCain was calling for rmore of the same to get us out of our predicament- deregulation.
If the American public really wants to continue down this path that we're on then they'll vote for McCain.
I think news organizations need to educate the country about the people who are giving McCain (and HIllary and Obama) economic advice. I don't advocate such close scrutiny for all advisors, but Americans top concern is the economy, the importance of the economy to all of us and given that we're heading towards a recession I think a responsible media would point out that McCain's advisors advocate more of the same to get us out of this mess. Personally I think it's like someone throwing gas to put out a fire and when the fire doesn't go out, they throw more gas on it, believing that because the gas is a liquid (and liquids puts out fires) they just need more gas thrown on it…. It's not as though Gramm has learned from his past mistakes and now wants to try water to put out that fire.
If Americans believe that deregulation and government bailouts of corporations while the government rolls back protections for individuals will solve our current financial problems, then they'll vote for McCain. But Americans should understand the choices.
So while I see Shaun's point that Gramm is a terrorist in pinstripes, I wouldn't have gone so far as to call Gramm a terrorist, even though his ideas have proven to be detrimental to the country. Gramm doesn't really want to ruin the country, like a terrorist. But Gramm doesn't believe that his philosophy his hurting the country. Perhaps Gramm is just looking out after the interests of the wealthy, and doesn't care about the average guy, which is hit hardest by his policies.
What I've never understood is people dropping by, reading one post among 20 on the page, and declaring the entire web site their disparaging term of choice. There are multiple main posters here, some of whom are reliably moderate, some of whom are not.
[...] Phil Gramm: McCain’s Terrorist In Pinstripes Because that’s the kind of horseshit that passes. 6000 words strung together, proving nothing, not a damn thing, except an excuse to use a headline. [...]
[...] SHAUN MULLEN wrote an interesting post today on Phil Gramm: McCainâ??s Terrorist In PinstripesHere’s a quick excerptThere is a ticking time bomb in the John McCain campaign and the sooner that Barack Obama can turn his full attention to exploiting it the bigger and consequential the explosion should be for this phony maverick. … [...]
I found this to be a very informative and reasonable article for which I thank you. I also find snort's comment on balance to be accurate and reasonable.
Now is it true that this law was dropped into an appropriations bill at the last minute with no hearings?