CURRENT US GOVERNMENT: LORD OF THE FLIES

Jim, Hightower writes a revealing article as to whom we can blame for the current state of our distressing economic affairs. He lists them as Phil Gramm,Alan Greenspan, Chris Cox, William Donaldson,and Henry Paulson. Those who have been carefully following this economic crisis will be little surprised. Those who are overwhelmed with the plethora of pundits claiming expertise, but succeeding only in pushing their own biases and confusing the issues, may realize they have been lied to and, if they plan to vote for McCain will live to regret it as much as the country has regretted Bush 43.

Each of the five has been given too free a rein to commit the economic atrocities that have been dropped onto the unsuspecting and trusting citizens. Starting with Phil Gramm, currently chief economic adviser to McCain, he pushed through a bill to dissolve the 1933 Glass-Steagall Act, a New Deal reform that prohibited banks, investment houses, and insurance companies from combining into one corporation. Quopting Hightower, he wrote: "In literally the dead of night, just before Congress's Christmas break in 2000, Chairman Gramm snuck a short provision into an 11,000-page appropriations bill. The item, which only a few lobbyists and lawmakers knew had been inserted, became law when the larger bill was signed by then-President Bill Clinton. Gramm's little legislative sticky note decreed that a relatively new, exotic, and inherently risky form of investments called "derivatives" were not to be regulated--or even monitored--by the government." Both some Democrats and Republicans tagged onto the train pulling this out of the station.

Next, Alan Greenspan who had the grace to take on his responsibility for this crisis by admitting he was wrong. Now that is a nice move but lacks credibility in face of the many voices trying for years to show him why he was wrong, all of which he ignored to the complete disaster resulting to the individual taxpayer in America who will have to pay it all off. Seen as an oracle, Hightower describes further: "As Federal Reserve chairman from 1987 to 2006, he held the regulatory power to prevent the irrational inflation of the huge derivatives bubble that has now burst-- yet he fought fiercely through four presidencies to prevent even the meekest oversight by the Fed or any other agency."

Chris Cox succeeded William Donaldson as SWEC Chair when Bush chose him in 2005. "He weakened the ability of the enforcement staff even to investigate securities violations by Wall Street firms, much less prosecute them. Also, in an act of pure ideological folly, he eliminated an office that had been set up specifically to watch out for future problems with such high-risk investments as derivatives."

Walter Donaldson headed the SEC (Securityu and Exchange Commisssion) which supposedly regulates investment banks. He was a Wall Street investment banker, a fox guarding the chicken coop as so much of the Bush administration was permitted to do.

Henry Paulson was "considered one of Wall Street's "smart guys" who had figured out how to make billions in brokerage fees by packaging and selling these wondrous pieces of wizardry called derivatives, and he came into government as an unquestioning believer in deregulatory doctrine."

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