McCain decries Wall Street's failure. But he neglects to mention his close friend and adviser Phil Gramm greased the way to this crisis.

[one...two...tree 2,762]

As the news broke of the Lehman Brothers meltdown and the rest of the latest financial crisis, John McCain, speaking at a campaign rally in Florida on Monday, angrily declared,

We will never put America in this position again. We will clean up Wall Street. This is a failure.

And in a statement released by his campaign, McCain called for greater "transparency and accountability" on Wall Street.

If McCain wants to hold someone accountable for the failure in transparency and accountability that led to the current calamity, he should turn to his good friend and adviser, Phil Gramm.

As Mother Jones reported in June, eight years ago, Gramm, then a Republican senator chairing the Senate banking committee, slipped a 262-page bill into a gargantuan, must-pass spending measure. Gramm's legislation, written with the help of financial industry lobbyists, essentially removed newfangled financial products called swaps from any regulation. Credit default swaps are basically insurance policies that cover the losses on investments, and they have been at the heart of the subprime meltdown because they have enabled large financial institutions to turn risky loans into risky securities that could be packaged and sold to other institutions.

Lehman's collapse threatens the financial markets because of swaps. From Bloomberg:

Bond-default risk soared worldwide as the collapse of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. sparked concern than the $62 trillion credit-derivatives market will unravel....

Lehman, the fourth-largest securities firm until last week, has been one of the 10 largest counterparties in the market for credit-default swaps, according to a 2007 report by Fitch Ratings. The market, which is unregulated and has no central exchange where prices are disclosed, has been the fastest-growing type of so-called over-the-counter derivative, according to the Bank for International Settlements.

"The immediate problem is the derivative default swaps market, in which a plethora of institutional accounts and dealer accounts are at risk,'' Bill Gross, manager of the world's largest bond fund at Pacific Investment Management Co. in Newport Beach, California, said in an interview with Bloomberg Radio yesterday. "It induces a tremendous amount of volatility and uncertainty.''

Barclays Capital analysts have estimated that if a financial institution with $2 trillion in credit-default swap trades were to fail, it might trigger between $36 billion and $47 billion in losses for institutions that traded with the firm. So the Lehman fiasco--caused in part by the use of unregulated swaps--could lead to ruin elsewhere in the economy.

Gramm is responsible for the rise of the wild and woolly $62 trillion swaps market. And he was chairman of the McCain campaign and a top economic adviser for McCain--until he dismissed Americans worried about the economy as "whiners." After that comment, McCain dumped Gramm. But was Gramm truly excommunicated from McCain land? Last month, he attended a meeting of McCain's top supporters in Aspen, Colorado. And at a dinner that day, McCain singled out Gramm for praise. Last week, failed Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul revealed that Gramm, now an exec for Swiss banking giant UBS (which also lost billions of dollars due to subprime loans and swaps), had recently called him as part of a McCain effort to win Paul's endorsement. Paul turned Gramm down. (Both Gramm and Paul are Texas Republicans.) Gramm's Paul-courting effort seems to indicate that the fellow who has done much to cause the current financial troubles (and who was once considered a possible Treasury secretary should McCain win the White House) is back in the good graces of the McCain campaign.

http://www.motherjones.com/mojoblog/archiv...isis_gramm.html

[no name 1]

Gotta love a (political) source that has a photo essay on phone sex operators.

Edited September 16, 2008 by illumine

[GaryC 7]

Citing Mother Jones is rich. Whats next? Mad Magazine?

Edited September 16, 2008 by GaryC

[no name 1]

Citing Mother Jones is rich. Whats next? Mad Magazine?

Funny you mention that....

[one...two...tree 2,762]

Mother Jones is an independent, nonprofit magazine rooted in liberal political values and known for its investigative reporting. The winner of National Magazine Awards in General Excellence in 2001^[1] and 2007,^[2]Mother Jones has been nominated for 17 National Magazine Awards and has won five times.^[1]

With a paid circulation of 233,000 (the average for the first half of 2006), Mother Jones is the most widely read progressive publication in the United States.

The magazine was named after Mary Harris Jones, a.k.a Mother Jones, a trade union activist, opponent of child labor, and self-described "hellraiser". The stated mission of Mother Jones is to produce revelatory journalism that in its power and reach informs and inspires a more just and democratic world.^[3]

Mother Jones is published by the Foundation for National Progress, a nonprofit 501©(3) organization.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mother_Jones_(magazine)

[no name 1]

n/m

Edited September 16, 2008 by illumine

[GaryC 7]

Mother Jones is an independent, nonprofit magazine rooted in liberal political values and known for its investigative reporting. The winner of National Magazine Awards in General Excellence in 2001^[1] and 2007,^[2]Mother Jones has been nominated for 17 National Magazine Awards and has won five times.^[1]

With a paid circulation of 233,000 (the average for the first half of 2006), Mother Jones is the most widely read progressive publication in the United States.

The magazine was named after Mary Harris Jones, a.k.a Mother Jones, a trade union activist, opponent of child labor, and self-described "hellraiser". The stated mission of Mother Jones is to produce revelatory journalism that in its power and reach informs and inspires a more just and democratic world.^[3]

Mother Jones is published by the Foundation for National Progress, a nonprofit 501©(3) organization.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mother_Jones_(magazine)

Yeah, right. Whatever you say Steven.

[one...two...tree 2,762]

Mother Jones is an independent, nonprofit magazine rooted in liberal political values and known for its investigative reporting. The winner of National Magazine Awards in General Excellence in 2001^[1] and 2007,^[2]Mother Jones has been nominated for 17 National Magazine Awards and has won five times.^[1]

With a paid circulation of 233,000 (the average for the first half of 2006), Mother Jones is the most widely read progressive publication in the United States.

The magazine was named after Mary Harris Jones, a.k.a Mother Jones, a trade union activist, opponent of child labor, and self-described "hellraiser". The stated mission of Mother Jones is to produce revelatory journalism that in its power and reach informs and inspires a more just and democratic world.^[3]

Mother Jones is published by the Foundation for National Progress, a nonprofit 501©(3) organization.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mother_Jones_(magazine)

Yeah, right. Whatever you say Steven.

You tried to discredit the source...I gave you facts.

Here's some more facts from various sources:

.....

Former Texas Sen. Phil Gramm has emerged as the key behind-the-scenes economics/Wall Street guy for John McCain and is being touted as the treasury secretary in waiting. Since 2002, Gramm has been an executive with the U.S. operations of UBS, the giant Swiss Bank. An unintentionally hilarious interview with Gramm on the Wall Street Journal editorial page last week asserted that Gramm has "been a key instigator of some of the biggest money-making UBS deals of recent years." The interview was noteworthy not just for first-class butt-kissing, but for deliberately gliding over the avalanche of disasters in the past year that has turned UBS from a respected Swiss titan of discretion and risk management into a laughing stock.

http://www.slate.com/id/2194933/

.........

McCain's econ brain

Economic conservatives take heart: Phil Gramm is influencing the candidate's platform.

NEW YORK (Fortune) -- Now that the faltering economy has replaced national security as the overriding issue in the presidential campaign, John McCain is portraying himself as a budget-shrinking, flat-tax-embracing, healthcare-privatizing champion of free markets. But is this Reaganesque zealot the real John McCain?

The big question is whether McCain's radical agenda is simply designed to rally the Republican base, or would prove a blueprint for a McCain presidency. Given the Arizona Senator's maverick record, voters have every reason to distrust the new McCain. He twice opposed the Bush tax cuts and keeps dropping disturbing lines like, "I don't know as much about the economy as I should."

But economic conservatives should take heart. McCain's chief economic adviser - and perhaps his closest political friend - is the ultimate pure play in free market faith, former Texas Senator Phil Gramm. If McCain follows Gramm's counsel, and most of his current positions are vintage Gramm indeed, his policies as president would represent not just a sharp departure from the Bush years, but an assault on government growth that Republicans have boasted about, but failed to achieve, for decades.

http://money.cnn.com/2008/02/18/news/newsm...rtune/index.htm

.....

More Headaches for McCain's Camp

For weeks now, John McCain's presidential campaign has faced awkward questions about the outside activities of several top advisers. Add one more name to the list: former Texas senator Phil Gramm, McCain's longtime friend and one of his five campaign co-chairs. (A sixth, former congressman Tom Loeffler, quit recently after NEWSWEEK reported on his lobbying work for Saudi Arabia.) According to McCain spokeswoman Jill Hazelbaker, the co-chair position affords Gramm "broad input into the structure, financing and conduct of the campaign." She added that Gramm, who has a doctorate in economics, is also "a valued voice on economic policy." Gramm is not a paid McCain adviser, but his day job—vice chairman of a U.S. division of Zurich-based financial giant UBS—could pose new tests for a candidate who has promised high ethics standards and ditched advisers who failed to meet them.

UBS has recently written off huge losses in subprime-mortgage-based securities, and last week liberal bloggers noted that Gramm was a registered UBS lobbyist on mortgage-securities issues until at least December 2007.

http://www.newsweek.com/id/139443

Edited September 16, 2008 by Jabberwocky

[alienlovechild 75]

Does anybody see a pattern with the demise of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae? How come they bribed. . . I mean contributed big time to Dem Senators Dodd, Kerry, Obama and Clinton. They sure screwed the little people out there while claiming to have the competence to run the economy. How did Obama get so much money as a junior senator?

"During this period, Sen. Richard Shelby led a small group of legislators favoring reform, including fellow Republican Sens. John Sununu, Chuck Hagel and Elizabeth Dole. Meanwhile, Dodd -- who along with Democratic Sens. John Kerry, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton were the top four recipients of Fannie and Freddie campaign contributions from 1988 to 2008 -- actively opposed such measures and further weakened existing regulation."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/11/AR2008091102841.html ://http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dy...091102841.html ://http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dy...091102841.html

[Sofiyya 1,687]

Mother Jones is an independent, nonprofit magazine rooted in liberal political values and known for its investigative reporting. The winner of National Magazine Awards in General Excellence in 2001^[1] and 2007,^[2]Mother Jones has been nominated for 17 National Magazine Awards and has won five times.^[1]

With a paid circulation of 233,000 (the average for the first half of 2006), Mother Jones is the most widely read progressive publication in the United States.

The magazine was named after Mary Harris Jones, a.k.a Mother Jones, a trade union activist, opponent of child labor, and self-described "hellraiser". The stated mission of Mother Jones is to produce revelatory journalism that in its power and reach informs and inspires a more just and democratic world.^[3]

Mother Jones is published by the Foundation for National Progress, a nonprofit 501©(3) organization.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mother_Jones_(magazine)

Doesn't negate the fact that they have a left leaning POV. Private jetting, mansion-dwelling, limosine liberal Al Gore won the Nobel Prize for global warming, too. What a joke!

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

If that's true - and Gramm did push financial services de-regulation by stealth into "must pass" legislation - that's incredibly scandalous and must surely raise some questions as to the McCain camps economic expertise.

Of course rather than simply be outraged by the political provenance of the publication - it probably wouldn't be difficult to look up the bill in question and see if the claims hold water...

[symbiosis 0]

Citing Mother Jones is rich. Whats next? Mad Magazine?

Mother Jones is a legend in journalism. You should get out more, Gary.

The non-partisan Sourcewatch refers to the magazine's "first rate investigative reporting"

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Mother_Jones

But I suppose Bill O'Really? is your primary source.

Just because it doesn't play in Peoria doesn't mean squat. I've been to Peoria.

[symbiosis 0]

Does anybody see a pattern with the demise of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae? How come they bribed. . . I mean contributed big time to Dem Senators Dodd, Kerry, Obama and Clinton. They sure screwed the little people out there while claiming to have the competence to run the economy. How did Obama get so much money as a junior senator?

"During this period, Sen. Richard Shelby led a small group of legislators favoring reform, including fellow Republican Sens. John Sununu, Chuck Hagel and Elizabeth Dole. Meanwhile, Dodd -- who along with Democratic Sens. John Kerry, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton were the top four recipients of Fannie and Freddie campaign contributions from 1988 to 2008 -- actively opposed such measures and further weakened existing regulation."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/11/AR2008091102841.html ://http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dy...091102841.html ://http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dy...091102841.html ://http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dy...091102841.html

both sides are to blame: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...1302638_pf.html

... but now is the time for the White House to lead the way ... something it has never shown evidence of being capable of.

[almaty 19]

i am sure the same folks basing mother jones..believes every word that Rush speaks or writes........