The problem with Phil Gramm is
NOT that he called America a nation of "whiners". (Gramm himself might perhaps be a plausible candidate for chief whiner.)
The problem with Phil Gramm is his POLICIES:
Corporate Welfare and its disastrous results:
Enron, the
sub-prime meltdown, rampant commodities
inflation, and the enlistment of the federal bankruptcy courts as collection agents for irresponsible,
predatory lenders.
And that was all when Gramm was still in the Senate.
Gramm's resume AFTER leaving the Senate makes his selection by McCain
almost beyond credibility:
How could
any candidate ever select, for
any job (much less that of chief economic guru), a man serving as lobbyist (and US executive) for a foreign bank whose
specialty is offering secretive
off-shore havens for wealthy American
tax cheats?
What on earth was
McCain thinking?
Gramm, as chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, was a chief architect of banking and commodities trading deregulation, and a co-sponsor of the Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000.
One provision of the bill was referred to as the "Enron loophole" because Gramm drafted it in cooperation with lobbyists for Enron Corporation. Critics blame the provision for permitting the Enron scandal to occur.<4> At the time, Gramm's wife was on Enron's board of directors.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phil_Gramm Gramm, as the reliable Senate point man for predatory lender's, repeatedly attempted to (in the blasphemous name of "bankruptcy reform") turn the nation's bankruptcy courts into a club wielding collection agent of irresponsible sub-prime lenders --- the same lenders who send unlimited unsolicited credit cards to unemployed students. (No matter that banks had prospered for generations by simply using responsible lending practices - - - these bankers now wanted loan shark rates, without the risk, and with the government as their collector.)
The selection of Phil Gramm by John McCain presents major question about
McCain's values, priorities, and judgment.
(Phil Gramm is to economic policy, what Dick Cheney is to constitutional government.)
Gramm's comments about "whiners" is only a small window into
Phil Gramm's dark soul.
Which raises this questions:
- - What vales does John McCain share with Phil Gramm?
- - Is Phil Gramm a lens through which to view John McCain's "Dark Side"?(Or has McCain simply lost his bearings?)
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