"You've heard of mental depression; this is a mental recession...We have sort of become a nation of whiners."
Look up the definition of douchebag, and quite likely you'll find Phil Gramm as the illustration. So it's good to see John McCain finally do something right and kick his sorry ass out of his campaign after he spewed those remarks. The question is whether McCain will continue to follow Gramm's advice on economic matters.
This is the guy who as vice chairman of UBS Investment Bank spent 2005 and 2006 lobbying Congress, the Federal Reserve, and the Treasury Department to overrule state laws that sought to stem the rise of
predatory tactics used by lenders and brokers to place homeowners in
high-cost mortgages. Which was followed by UBS having to write down $18 billion in exposure to subprime loans and talk about laying off up to 8,000 staff. Good job, Phil.
Gramm has a long history of scummy behavior.He ran for Congress as a Texas Democrat in 1978 and 1980. Then he attended budget meetings of the Democratic caucus, only to report their strategies secretly to the Republicans to help them pass Reagan's first budget. Eventually he made it official by changing parties. A Republican from Texas - practically a synonym for douchebag.
Later in the Senate he tried to amend the Iraq International Law Compliance Act of 1990, which imposed sanctions on Iraq for not complying with various international human rights conventions. His amendment would have allowed the first Bush administration to waive the sanctions if it determined that they hurt U.S. businesses trying to sell arms and such to Iraq. His amendment was defeated and the law passed a week before Iraq invaded Kuwait.
If that wasn't enough, he also served effectively as the Senator from Enron. He sponsored legislation largely written by Enron lobbyists which exempted from regulation most over-the-counter energy trades and trading on electronic energy commodity markets. This "Enron loophole" is precisely what allows speculators to drive up the cost of oil right now. Thank Phil Gramm again...
Some more bon mots from Gramm:
"Has anyone ever noticed that we live in the only country in the
world where all the poor people are fat?"
(Leaving aside the inaccuracy of the overly broad characterization and explanations about the sorts of cheap food available to the poor in this country, has anyone noticed Gramm's own expanding waistline?)
"Most people don't have the luxury of living to be 80 years old, so
it's hard for me to feel sorry for them."
(In response to a claim that
a Social Security proposal would hurt people over 80.)
This is the kind of compassionate conservative John McCain points to as his resident expert on economics. There has been lots of speculation that he would name Gramm as his Secretary of Treasury if he won this fall. Hopefully his big mouth has put that prospect to rest once and for all. On the other hand, maybe we'd get Gramm's wife Wendy, who the Wall Street Journal admiringly called "the Margaret Thatcher of financial regulation." Need any more reasons to vote for Obama?
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