The childish attack on Chris Cox, Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman and our former Congressman…..is ludicrous, ridiculous and without any foundation in truth. Anyone that has been following the Wall Street debacle will tell you that it is greedy speculators….not Chris Cox that is driving up oil prices! Anyone that has been following the Wall Street debacle would also tell you that Chris Cox had nothing to do with being able to control out of control Hedge Funds, Derivatives and Sub-Prime discounted debt! McCain could just as easily blame the Arrowhead delivery driver….for leaving too many bottles of water! Thus causing a shortage!
John McCain stated today that “Chris Cox has betrayed the public trust!” What about the Senate and the Congress that protected his buddies and special interest people over the last 26 years. Did McCain suddenly “Just shake himself up!” and realize that his entire career has been one of simply providing special privilege only to his select group of political contributors?
McCain calling for a “Special Commission” with Special people is not the “Single Bullet Theory” to solve the current Credit and Global Liquidity crisis. Blasting Chris Cox is truly a desperate measure….meaningless we may add. What did Sarah Palin say about Chris Cox? Maybe McCain should have checked with the top of the ticket….before blurting out his unfounded accusations. We stand behind the actions of Chris Cox…especially on his recent edit on “naked short selling”….which will finally bring some redemption to those that break the trading rules both with impunity and repetitively.
McCain bringing his campaign down to personal attacks has not been a big problem for him. It seems his only strategy and sadly the only one he knows how to do. McCain has finally bitten the big one on the campaign trail….sad really.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080919/ap_on_el_pr/mccain
Obama mocked McCain’s call to fire the SEC chairman, basically saying why stop at Cox. “In the next 47 days you can fire the whole trickle-down, on-your-own, look-the-other-way crowd in Washington who has led us down this disastrous path,” he told a campaign rally in Espanola. “Don’t just get rid of one guy. Get rid of this administration. Get rid of this philosophy. Get rid of the do-nothing approach to our economic problem and put somebody in there who’s going to fight for you.
“Today we need a plan that doesn’t wait until the system fails,” the senator said.
Chris Cox is a darling among Republicans and especially those in California. McCain seems to think that firing is the only solution to problems. What a hothead.
It’s better fire Cox than take responsiblity the mess brought on by the 26 years of deregulation.
McCain is dirty on this one. He did everything he could to disembowel the SEC.
While I agree with you that McCain’s call for Cox to be fired overreaches, I hope you’re not suggesting Cox, and the economic philosophy he supports, is without fault. For many, many years, Cox has been part of an economic philosophy, namely, trickle-down economics, that has, yet again, been proven anathema to a healthy economy. As SEC Chairman, he’s been we’ll situated to protect that philosophy.
It isn’t time to jettison Cox…it’s time to jettison the failed economic approach he supports.
What I really don’t understand is all the blame on “greed,” “greedy speculators” and “greed on Wall Street.” Isn’t greed pretty much what their job is all about, maximizing profit while following whatever few rules there are? I’m not even being sarcastic. What gets called greed in retrospect, either in envy or scapegoating, is merely their skill, their success. Or am I missing something?
Vern –
One of us! One of us! One of us!
In all seriousness though, go watch ‘Wall Street’ or ‘Boiler Room.’ Greed is good. Corruption is bad. Sub-prime mortgage lending was a boon for investors that was a complete fraud. I have to admit, sometimes, even capitalism fails.
SMS
Sarah dear, I saw Wall Street. On the big screen, when it was new. In Connecticut. You were eight. And I used self-control in my comment not channeling Gordon Gekko’s great monologue, because I didn’t want to say if I personally thought greed was good or not. I just think it’s nonsensical for guys like McCain to blame a characteristic like “greed” when that characteristic is built right into the system, the system they’ve fought to deregulate for all these years. In fact, isn’t the system BUILT, predicated, on greed? Gordon Gekko would have said so, and he would know.
Vern – The system is built on self interest. And self interest must be moderated by sensible regulations.
I don’t know all the ins and outs of what happened with this Wall Street meltdown. I am sure that there is plenty of blame to go around.
It was obvious for years that what was happening in the sub-prime market was going to collapse at some point. It was just a matter of how hard the fall was going to be. The fall has been pretty bad – much worse than I expected.
Where do we go from here?