John McCain’s affinity for supporting the deregulation of major industries puts him in league with the worlds most notorious corporate criminals. Deregulation is the tool of the super rich corporate criminal class, and John McCain is their poster child.
Suddenly, John McCain is fashioning himself as the great protector of the common folk who will march upon the good ol’ boys in Washington whose feckless deregulation has allowed Wall Street to veer out of control. The only problem with this little fantasy is that the first good ol’ boy he’d need to whack is himself. As the above article from Politicor pointed out six weeks before the Wall Street meltdown, we should not be fooled.
Last month, the blog Politicor wrote an article on the subject of John McCain’s shameless pursuit of stuffing the coffers of the good ol’ boys. Given the current Wall Street debacle and bailout that will be funded by taxpayers going into hoc to China for decades to come, the Politicor article could have been written today, but they had the foresight to expose McCain six weeks before his lifelong policies came home to roost.
More excerpts:
McCain and the S&L crisis:
First McCain supported deregulation of the Savings and Loan industry. All the while accepting lavish gifts and trips on private jets from Charles Keating who would benefit directly from the legislation. This led to rampant theft of customer savings. The Savings and Loan industry then crashed costing the American taxpayers $30 Billion. McCain was indicted for corruption and Keating went to prison.
McCain and the energy deregulation crisis:
McCain followed that mess with deregulation of the energy industry. This created [chaos] in the energy markets, the Enron scandal, and cost rate payers across the country $20 billion in manipulated energy costs. Within a year all competition for gas and oil was gone and prices began rising.
On a personal note, I’m one of the people directly slammed by the McCain-supported deregulation of the energy markets. I saw my electricity bill climb 500% in a matter of days, basically a transfer of wealth from ordinary people in California to criminals in Texas while Bush-McCain and the Republican congress did absolutely nothing other than facilitate the rape – a bit of vengeance against the state that said NO to Bush. This nearly ruined my business – proof that the Republican party doesn’t care about the small business that fuels the growth of the middle class. It only cares about corporate giants that transfer wealth to the elite power brokers.
McCain and oil windfall profiteering:
A sweet deal for Exxon Mobile who this year raked in more profits than any company in the history of the world, and payed their CEO $500 million in bonuses, while spending less that 2 million to develop new sources of oil from the more than 10 million acres of undeveloped US oil leases Exxon holds.
McCain and the mortgage crisis
That was not enough for our hero John McCain. He then supported deregulation of the Mortgage industry which led to rampant lender abuse and the current mortgage crisis. Now with the just passed bailout legislation this will cost taxpayers $150 Billion.
Of course, this has since been followed directly by the collapse of the banking system and what is (so far) the biggest bailout in history, with the AIG bailout costing over 50 times more than the Chrysler bailout.
The article goes on to describe McCain as basically a stooge of the real criminals: the Charles Keatings, the Ken Lays, and the Phil Gramms of the world. McCain may be the architect of financial ruin, but his puppet masters are the looters.
Deregulate a sector=>massive corporate profits=>abuses=>collapse of that sector=>taxpayer funded bailout=>re-regulate that sector=>stir, shake, mix, repeat.
The massive profits to the few come from the working class.
The taxpayer bailouts come from the working class.
The repeal of the Estate/Dynasty tax will ensure that those ill-gotten gains will remain in the hands of the ruling class in perpetuity, thus restoring the petty kingdoms of old.
We teach our children to play fair, play by the rules. But the reality is, the ruling class manipulates the game, always to its advantage. Some kids pick up on that, and learn that the only way to win is to cheat.
That, my friends, is the true lesson of the “social conservatives,” the “evangelical christians.” Lie. Cheat. Blame others. And always exact swift and viscious punishment on all who do not submit.
McIIIrd’s entire career has been based on de-regulation, fueled by his fronting for big business his entire political career.
Now, what would you expect, if your entire political career was launched, funded and nurtured by your marriage to a beer baroness…?
As someone else has said, Republicans across the board believe in:
Privatize!! (the profits)
Socialize (the losses)
Check out this bit from Yahoo Finance about another area of the market (one I have not heard of before) is teetering on the brink:
http://finance.yahoo.com/banking-budgeting/article/105785/Worst-Crisis-Since-1930s-With-No-End-Yet-in-Sight
The Yahoo article is long but ends with:
(Emphasis mine above.)
We, the people, get taken in by these bailouts. Markets are nothing more than reasoned gambling. There is risk involved. Yet when the GOP removes all of the regulations to keep the dishonest and uber greedy from running away with it all, and then it collapses, we, the people have to come in and pay for it all. Meanwhile, we the people, get pay reductions, rate increases in just about everything from gas to electric to food.
At what point will these idiots realize that it is a healthy middle class which sustains the economy? We, the people, buy things with disposable income. Because we have been taught that it is a must to “keep up with the Joneses” when the cash is no longer there, then do it on credit.
Every last area of money is being transferred. From costs of living to payday loans with triple digit interest rates, to firms like JG Wentworth which buys out annuities for pennies on the dollars, to companies that buy your gold – every last aspect of the economy is sucking the life out of which sustains us.
Yeah, interesting, isn’t it.
McCain chants the “deregulation” mantra for 20 years, and SUDDENLY, now that the financial abuse chicken come home to roost, and the stock market is crashing, he starts to sing a new tune. He cannot even get himself to say the deregulation word, but wants instead to appoint some kind of slow-moving “commission.”
You have to wonder why ANYONE would support a candidate who abuses his own fellow countrymen.
See my blog on Stockholm Syndrome:
Here comes the DJ back up again, as the wealthy buy back in, after they’ve cleared out all the suckers…I mean small investors!
NY Atty General is investigating illegal short selling at some Wall St firms! Illegal trading? No way! Those good ol’ boys wouldn’t do things like that? Why the chances of being arrested and convicted are between slim and none!