McCain and Keating Economics
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| 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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The punishment finally worked, McCain said. "Eventually, I gave them my ship's name and squadron number, and confirmed that my target had been the power plant."
Is giving up military secrets to the enemy?
<<No, I don't think Ayers was innocent, and I also don't think McCain was only guilty of poor judgement.>>
Why do you think McCain was guilty of more?
Thank you. It's long past time someone re-pointed this out: Republicans will say, if asked, exactly the line you just highlighted: "I don't hate Obama, I hate his policies." And yet all we hear about is the rumored "whitey" tape from Michelle, Ayers, Rev. Wright....nothing much at all about Obama's policies themselves.
Perhaps because they're aware on some level that to criticize Obama's policies in view of the current Republican-created mess (and in contrast with the actual policies of the McCain campaign) would make them sound pretty foolish?
<<Then you would be mistaken. The charges were dropped for lack of evidence. There never was a trial.>>
Um OJ was found innocent on lack of evidence.
<<Ayers was the party in question here. (unlike Keating, he never stood trial)>>
Tradegy isn't it?
< You can say what you like.
thanks, McCain did nothing illegal to deserve punishment.
Huh? My Dh knew him in HS. Hadn't even seen him in almost 40 years when he read in the newspapers about him going to prison for raping post surgical patients. He had been a teacher,don't know what went wrong with that, or how he could have become a nurse with a seedy background. you know, that act 34 thingy?
Still, that association was not with Ayres at the TIME of his so called terror activities. So how is this revelent? Obama didn't participate in any of it, so he is not a previous felon
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