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« Crony capitalism | Main | Berkshire Hathaway buys a stake in Goldman »

September 23, 2008

Comments

Smithington

There are problems with this “journalist’s” narrative.

First, all of this assumes that this piece of legislation, limited in scope, was some kind of panacea for the current crises. I suspect all it would have done was rearrange the deck chairs on the Titanic.

Second, S. 190 passed the Senate Banking Committee. It was not blocked by Democrats. And it never made it to the Senate floor for Democrats to filibuster. Who thinks that a Democratic threat to filibuster would succeed? And if the issue was important, why not make them do it?

Third, there were versions of this bill that would have undoubtedly passed with a bipartisan vote and left its main thrust in place, but the Republicans were not interested in that when it was brought up in Committee, I suspect because they had no intention of bringing it up for a Senate floor vote anyway.

Fourth, Fannie and Freddie are only a part of the crisis. Fannie and Freddie don’t write mortgages– they buy and package them. The mortgages they bought had already been made.

Heaven knows, Democrats have much to answer for. It was Clinton who signed Gramm-Leach-Bliley. There’s no doubt that Chris Dodd is very, very friendly with the financial industry.

But McCain, part of the Keating 5, the great regulator? Because he made a statement in support of S. 190? He’s in it up to his neck as much as anybody. Many of Fannie and Freddie’s former lobbyists now work for John McCain.

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