missteps in an election cycle
The Bush administration's proposed "addressing" of current financial crisis (no, it's not over) represents a failure on so many fronts its amazing.
First of all, the only actual smart move in the hodgepodge of shuffling was uniting the SEC and the commodities regulator as a single entity. It's silly to treat them differently. But given the systemic disregard for the actual implications of commodities pricing by the federal government (for example disregarding the cost of food and fuel from inflation calculations because they are "volatile" - meaning they go up, for the most part) what good will that do? well, it has the potential to discourage gaming of signals that ancillary markets use to make decisions. score one for common sense. only about 2 billion to go to get even with idiocy.
Second, if your goal is to appear to be doing something about a crisis, give the people something. This is just stupid crisis management. People are freaked out about housing. Do SOMETHING about housing regulation. Even if your real goal is to use a crisis to deregulate, throw a bone to the people that are freaked out. Here's a suggestion. It's called a slight of hand trick. Tell the American public you're not going to tolerate mortgage fraud and so you're putting in rules that prevent refunds or paybacks on sales prices that give the appearance of higher sales prices than actually occur. Now that you've done SOMETHING, you can continue your plan to essentially disregard the health and well being of anyone will less than 100M in assets.
Third and most importantly, from a party politics standpoint, WHAT IN THE HELL ARE YOU THINKING throwing banking reform into the mix during an election cycle that you're already behind in? Has the GOP really lost its mind? Where is Rove or Grove' on this one? You're basically saying "we think some reforms should happen but the ultimate decision is going to be made by the people who are already ahead in the polls and we're on your side anyway, so give money to them" - this is stupid campaign based decision making (something this administration used to be good at).
I don't get it. If anything this seals Obama's bid. He's ahead in the financial institution fundraising, mccain can't go there because of the savings and loan history and clinton can't do much because wall street is in her district. Foolish. That's all I'm saying.
First of all, the only actual smart move in the hodgepodge of shuffling was uniting the SEC and the commodities regulator as a single entity. It's silly to treat them differently. But given the systemic disregard for the actual implications of commodities pricing by the federal government (for example disregarding the cost of food and fuel from inflation calculations because they are "volatile" - meaning they go up, for the most part) what good will that do? well, it has the potential to discourage gaming of signals that ancillary markets use to make decisions. score one for common sense. only about 2 billion to go to get even with idiocy.
Second, if your goal is to appear to be doing something about a crisis, give the people something. This is just stupid crisis management. People are freaked out about housing. Do SOMETHING about housing regulation. Even if your real goal is to use a crisis to deregulate, throw a bone to the people that are freaked out. Here's a suggestion. It's called a slight of hand trick. Tell the American public you're not going to tolerate mortgage fraud and so you're putting in rules that prevent refunds or paybacks on sales prices that give the appearance of higher sales prices than actually occur. Now that you've done SOMETHING, you can continue your plan to essentially disregard the health and well being of anyone will less than 100M in assets.
Third and most importantly, from a party politics standpoint, WHAT IN THE HELL ARE YOU THINKING throwing banking reform into the mix during an election cycle that you're already behind in? Has the GOP really lost its mind? Where is Rove or Grove' on this one? You're basically saying "we think some reforms should happen but the ultimate decision is going to be made by the people who are already ahead in the polls and we're on your side anyway, so give money to them" - this is stupid campaign based decision making (something this administration used to be good at).
I don't get it. If anything this seals Obama's bid. He's ahead in the financial institution fundraising, mccain can't go there because of the savings and loan history and clinton can't do much because wall street is in her district. Foolish. That's all I'm saying.
posted by aram shumavon at 8:48 AM
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