End of our economy

If Gramm attains the office of the Secretary of the Treasury it will mean the end of whatever is left, after Bush-Cheney, of our economy.

Gramm is the architect of much of the economic and financial problems plaguing us now, bubbles and speculation unregulated and uncontrolled except by the big players. And he did that as a Senator. As Sec Treasury he will be in a position to write finis to the US economy and financial structure.

McCain follows both neocon and neolib programs. We have been warned by his statements in the primaries often enough. Gramm would be the topper. 

Look into the history of Phil and Wendy Gramm in the late 90's and over into the period prior to his leaving the Senate. See for yourself what laws he enacted and how he achieved those enactments. She was on the board of directors of Enron. Need we say more?

by Jack Harrington (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 517 comments) on Tuesday, June 10, 2008 at 12:08:40 PM
 

Thanks for your comments.

Thanks for your comment. I found it helpful. I am just discovering the tip of the ice berg with Phil and Wendy Graham. I am going to look into the "Washington Spectator" as a source of information about skullduggery that our mainstream media, owned and operated now largely by huge, right-leaning mega-corporations that are biased in favor of the Republican point of view, even if they pretend to be objective. Ever since the FCC was prostituted out to these corporations under mostly George W. Bush's administration, we are getting a lot of major news about the  neo-cons and the neo-libs going unreported in the mainstream media, except in little tiny corners where nobody ever looks. Thanks for your comments.

by JOHN LORENZ (17 articles, 91 quicklinks, 73 diaries, 230 comments) on Tuesday, June 10, 2008 at 8:02:23 PM
 

I remember Phil Gramm and the boll weevils

His influence in turning the South into Republican seemed to rest on the fact he had taught economics. Fast forwarding to the EnRon scandal, he mused that he was concerned because his wife, who sat on their board, would lose an investment.

Next January seems years away, even though the distance is not that much further than the January just past. During this time a lot of churning has occcurred in the world of finance. And the trickle down result does not bode well for Republicans.

Five months from now who McCain gets economic information from will not seem important. The overriding question is, and will be, how can we get out of Iraq? Will the food banks have enough resources to handle Christmas. And just who will be Obama's Secretary of Defence?

by Margaret Bassett (38 articles, 2206 quicklinks, 30 diaries, 1501 comments) on Tuesday, June 10, 2008 at 1:25:19 PM
 

I agree your premise about the war

I think who McCain gets information from will be tremendously important if he gets in. Look at the people in the current Bush administration and where their policies have gotten us.

Yes, getting out of Iraq is of prime importance. The continued piling up of debt will sooner or later drive us out of Iraq as we go the way the Soviet Union went in Afghanistan. Bankruptcy helped fuel the collapse of the old Soviet Union. It will do the same for the US.

by JOHN LORENZ (17 articles, 91 quicklinks, 73 diaries, 230 comments) on Tuesday, June 10, 2008 at 8:57:22 PM
 

Republicans will be the death of us all

This nation is in more trouble now than it has been since the Great Depression, after a booming economy and a budget and deficit on the right track.  All it took was a Republican congress and an utterly irresponsible, incompetent, and shameless Republican president to destroy all the progress that had been made.  What happened to the social security lockbox?  Gone down the tubes, along with everything else.  It was one of the first things to go.  Raiding the henhouse is what they do best. 

The Republican penchant for deregulation has left our economy in shambles.  Insurance companies do what they like with impunity.  Commodity traders have driven up the price of oil to a degree that even the Saudis and the other members of OPEC are dismayed that it is too high in this country!!!  While most Americans blame the oil companies, it's really the commodity traders who are driving up the cost, and in the process, fueling and ever deepening recession.  Do these people care that they are ruining the nation's economy, businesses, homeowners, and people in general?  Not a chance.  Do you even think they will care if this turns into a depression?  Of course not.  They'll have more than enough: their investments will be worth even more, since they'll be able to pick up the best of the fallen, like their grandfathers did during the Great Depression, while the rest of us will suffer through as our grandparents did.

Barack Obama had it right this morning when he said that he was being unfair to George Bush by saying McCain would be like Bush's third term.  With Phil Gramm at the financial helm of this country, we're doomed.  As much damage as Bush has done, if McCain gets elected, you ain't seen nothin' yet.

by Sharon COOPER (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 9 comments) on Tuesday, June 10, 2008 at 1:29:18 PM
 

Point well taken

Ever since the end of the Great Depression, Republican conservatives have dreamed of the day when they could accomplish the twin goals of undoing FDR's New Deal, Harry Truman's Square Deal (I think that was what it was called) and Lyndon Johnson's Great Society and the other goal of taking all regulation off of big business. The code phrases were "smaller government" (i.e., cut out the safety net) and "trickle down" and "pro-business" (code for "let big business and the super rich have complete laissez-fair, unregulated business environment and remove the regulations put in place after the stock market crash of 1929).In other words,  return to the days of the 1890's with robber baron style plundering unchecked.  Ronald Reagan is said to have uttered this pipe dream out loud when he mentioned that the formula for "reining in entitlements" was to increase defense spending so high that it would starve out money for the social programs; and to take federal regulations off of big business by "returning power to the states" (thereby creating piecemeal dismantling of regulations on big business). From Reagan to the second George Bush(even including some during the Clinton administration with the gutting of Welfare), these goals have been steadily, inexorably creeping toward fulfilment. With the second Bush (Dubya) we have rapid acceleration of their fulfiilment with the credit-card-quagmire of the Iraq war using up so much of the national income that there is now no money left with which to salvage decaying social programs during this latest longterm and exacerbated economic downturn. The war, plus tax cuts for the rich, have put us into a terrible hole, with tremendous national debt that has created the conditions for the forseeable end of Social Security and Medicaid (if the thievery from these and other programs isn't stopped and the cronyism and neglect and/or downright budget cuts aren't prevented from delivering big chunks of safety net programs onto the ragged precipice of collapse).  You can be sure that between deregulation, the massive debt incurred to finance "off budget" the Iraq war at exorbitatnt interest paid out to foreign powers, outsourcing, galloping commodities speculation, etc, etc etc,  may well spell the end of any hope the middle class and poor have to regain any ground lost to this neo-con business/social model (they see business as synonymous with social wellbeing) and stopping the erosion of purchasing power, jobs (outsourcing), safety regulations, electoral integrity, tax dollar drain-offs by corrupt financial institutions, etc which are driving the country to ever more financial ruin, during which time the rich can come in and buy up more of the country at fire sale prices. Oh, it fits quite well. McCain would finish it off by packing the Supreme Court the rest of the way with "pro-business" "justices" and appointing people like Phil Gramm to finish off the delivery of the public into the maw of the super-rich speculators and "investors", against which Warren Buffet even recently warned us that they are out of control and need RE-regulation. The next President will  have their hands full trying to undo the institutional and economic disaster created by years of Republican mismanagement (since 1994 in Congress and since 1980 in the White House (even including Clinton, who instituted some of the Republican agenda, just not as much).

by JOHN LORENZ (17 articles, 91 quicklinks, 73 diaries, 230 comments) on Tuesday, June 10, 2008 at 8:52:27 PM
 

The list

I once called Senator Gramm's office in the early 90's about pending legislation that I was concerned about and the young man who answered the phone asked me for my name twice.  I gave it to him and continued to explain my concerns and he interrupted me to say I wasn't on the list.  I asked him what the list was and he told me it was a list of people who had supported Mr. Gramm in the past.  I told him that I had never sent money to Mr. Gramm's campaigns, but I was one of his constituents and wouldn't he like to know the opinions of constituents?  I can't remember his exact words, but he said something like I could have my opinion but they didn't want to hear it unless I was on the list.

 I don't know how many people remember that Gramm started off as a Democrat and then he checked which way the wind was blowing and became a Republican in the 80's....... but not before feeding confidential strategic planning information from the Democratic caucus meetings to the Republicans.  Jim Wright, after receiving multiple stab wounds to the back, relieved him from some of the committees that he sat on.  Gramm makes Joe Liebermann look like a paragon of steadfast fidelity.  I don't know why McCain or anyone else think they can trust him.  Then again I guess I wouldn't understand since I'm not on the list.  

by vidiot (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 262 comments) on Tuesday, June 10, 2008 at 9:12:57 PM