And I’ll Never Do It Again!
“…and I promise you, WE WILL NEVER PUT AMERICA IN THIS POSITION AGAIN.”
That’s heartening: the Republican Party, having spent the past 12 years cutting banking regulations, essentially telling every financial institution from here to Kalamazoo “Do whatever you want with other people’s money” while running the economy off a cliff, now admits they screwed the pooch, and promises solemnly they’ll never do it again:
In 2002, McCain introduced a bill to deregulate the broadband Internet market, warning that “the potential for government interference with market forces is not limited to federal regulation.” Three years earlier, McCain had joined with other Republicans to push through landmark legislation sponsored by then-Sen. Phil Gramm (Tex.), who is now an economic adviser to his campaign. The Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act aimed to make the country’s financial institutions competitive by removing the Depression-era walls between banking, investment and insurance companies.
That bill allowed AIG to participate in the gold rush of a rapidly expanding global banking and investment market. But the legislation also helped pave the way for companies such as AIG and Lehman Brothers to become behemoths laden with bad loans and investments.
“…and I promise you, WE WILL NEVER PUT AMERICA IN THIS POSITION AGAIN.” Isn’t that kinda like what OJ told Nicole a few times? We all know how well THOSE promises worked out…
