McCain and Keating Economics

iVillage Member
Registered: 09-09-2008
McCain and Keating Economics
19
Mon, 10-06-2008 - 1:56pm

It would do well for everyone to remember that this scandal did not happen too long ago.  Watch and learn.


http://www.keatingeconomics.com/?source=sem-pm-google&gclid=CKTO8reVk5YCFQRfagodgWLRFA


The current economic crisis demands that we understand John McCain's attitudes about economic oversight and corporate influence in federal regulation. Nothing illustrates the danger of his approach more clearly than his central role in the savings and loan scandal of the late '80s and early '90s.


John McCain was accused of improperly aiding his political patron, Charles Keating, chairman of the Lincoln Savings and Loan Association. The bipartisan Senate Ethics Committee launched investigations and formally reprimanded Senator McCain for his role in the scandal -- the first such Senator to receive a major party nomination for president.


At the heart of the scandal was Keating's Lincoln Savings and Loan Association, which took advantage of deregulation in the 1980s to make risky investments with its depositors' money. McCain intervened on behalf of Charles Keating with federal regulators tasked with preventing banking fraud, and championed legislation to delay regulation of the savings and loan industry -- actions that allowed Keating to continue his fraud at an incredible cost to taxpayers.


When the savings and loan industry collapsed, Keating's failed company put taxpayers on the hook for $3.4 billion and more than 20,000 Americans lost their savings. John McCain was reprimanded by the bipartisan Senate Ethics Committee, but the ultimate cost of the crisis to American taxpayers reached more than $120 billion.


The Keating scandal is eerily similar to today's credit crisis, where a lack of regulation and cozy relationships between the financial industry and Congress has allowed banks to make risky loans and profit by bending the rules. And in both cases, John McCain's judgment and values have placed him on the wrong side of history.




Edited 10/6/2008 1:57 pm ET by sistah_w

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iVillage Member
Registered: 01-18-2006
Tue, 10-07-2008 - 12:05pm

 

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-25-2007
Tue, 10-07-2008 - 12:12pm
Obama has not denied being on the same board as Ayers,

Sopal

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iVillage Member
Registered: 09-25-2008
Tue, 10-07-2008 - 12:15pm
You know what's most amazing about all of this Ayers stuff to me? After the election (assuming Obama wins), we will never, NEVER hear another word about it. Even the people who pushed it the hardest - guys like Kurtz and others - will simply let it totally and completely drop. No more news stories will be run about the "troubling connections between Barack Obama and 60's radical Ayers," there will be no congressional investigations, no court cases....nothing. Why? Because it will have lost its effectiveness as a campaign tool - the election being over now - and everyone already gets on a level we don't really discuss during the Sturm und Drang of the campaign's silly season, that there is truly nothing there - at least nothing worth making a big deal over. All of the overheated rhetoric that's being tossed around by even the most rabid of Obama-haters....will simply evaporate, like water on a hot sidewalk, leaving no trace that it was ever even here, except the bad aftertaste in everyone's mouths from all the millions of dollars wasted on ephemeral TV ads suggesting that there WAS something there. There isn't, and everyone knows it on some level. It's just that, for reasons of political expediency, many people won't actually admit that publicly, or possibly even to themselves. But just watch: if Barack Obama ascends to the White House, you will literally hear NOTHING more about this, ever....except as a footnote and a possible resurgence of the theme in 2012. Heck, even if Obama's defeated and returns to the Senate, you will never hear another word about it, despite the fact that it's scarcely less significant if a US Senator were truly "in league with terrorists" than if a President were. Certainly, such associations would be enough to have the person thrown out of the Senate, possibly jailed. But the silence will be even more deafening if Obama simply returns to the Senate. This is a late-in-the-game, desperation ploy, a sleazy negative attack based - literally - upon nothing.

iVillage Member
Registered: 07-22-2008
Tue, 10-07-2008 - 1:00pm

>>> Do you have a link supporting that accusation?

Just look up the "Keating Five" on anything other than a wacko-left web site. He appeared on several news programs yesterday stating exactly that.

>>> Why is it ok for republicans to condemn Obama for guilt by association, but not McCain? McCain and Keating were very good friends. Keating provided McCain with numerous perks...too bad McCain neglected to report Keating's generosity, until after he was busted!

Because Keating was guilty of a crime...not a radical ideology. Ayres has an unrepentant radical, anti-American ideology...as does Rev. Wright. It isn't simply that Obama "bumped into" these men, it's that he CHOSE to have close relationships with radicals that speaks to Obama's character.

A counter example for you, would be as if McCain were close friends for decades with the Grand Dragon of the KKK. I doubt that you'd simply brush off that relationship as "guilt by association" and would, instead, see it as a light on McCain's character and judgment.

McCain, however, has no such radical associations...while Obama has many. It speaks to Obama's character and judgment...and is extremely relevant to his "fitness" to assume the Presidency.

iVillage Member
Registered: 09-25-2008
Tue, 10-07-2008 - 1:14pm
McCain's been friends and associates for years with G. Gordon Liddy.

iVillage Member
Registered: 07-22-2008
Tue, 10-07-2008 - 1:35pm
And?
iVillage Member
Registered: 09-25-2008
Tue, 10-07-2008 - 2:16pm

Known, unrepentant felon, political terrorist; says he would do it again.

Ayers association = LIddy association.


iVillage Member
Registered: 07-22-2008
Tue, 10-07-2008 - 2:22pm
Sorry...no...Liddy was a criminal, not a terrorist, who paid for his crimes. I also haven't seen anything that demonstrates he is unrepentant, but he has not continued to commit crimes and he does not espouse a radical anti-American ideology. If anything, he is super-patriotic. Try again. I also haven't seen anything to suggest even the most cursory "friendship" between Liddy and McCain.
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-25-2007
Tue, 10-07-2008 - 2:30pm


Not exactly as Ayers was never tried and never convicted.

Sopal

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iVillage Member
Registered: 10-25-2006
Tue, 10-07-2008 - 3:04pm

<>

ITA. The GOP started this Ayers stuff, and now the Dems have to retaliate with the Keating fraud. As I've said before, the Republicans will do ANYTHING to avoid discussing the important issues.

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