Country First...Is That An Investment Bank?

My pal The Political Cat has a run down of the banking interest lobbyists and assorted high rankers in that industry that pretty much run the McCain campaign. I'll cut a couple out of the herd for you but go see the Kitty.

Phil Anderson: American Council of Life Insurers, Aetna, AIG, New York Life, MassMutual, VISA
Rebecca Anderson: Aegon, American Council of Life Insurers, Cigna, Barclays, Credit Suisse First Boston, HSBC
Stanton Anderson: The Debt Exchange
Charlie Black: JP Morgan, Washington Mutual Bank, Freddie Mac, Mortgage Bankers Association of America, National Association of Mortgage Brokers
Alfonse D'Amato: AIG, Freddie Mac
Phil Gramm: UBS Americas
Nancy Pfotenhauer: American Land Title Association, Mortgage Bankers Association
Vin Weber: Agstar Financial Services, AKT Investment Corp., American Institute of CPAs, Ernst & Young, Freddie Mac, Louis Dreyfus Corp, PriceWaterhouseCoopers

I'd like you to note, I said I'd pick out a couple...no, I left the vast majority out and ran out the ones you might recognize at a glance. Well, the Andersens was about, well, that name - repeatedly.

Country First, this list sure looks like it, Country First Greed and Corruption Bank of Investment Illiquidity. What the **** does this list have to do with any person in the United States of America that isn't rich? Other than picking their pockets, that is. I'll be go to hell if I can understand how the voting public doesn't put a 20 point margin between Obama and McCain. It is entirely too simplistic to blame it on race, or inexperience, or, or, or what? Does this really boil down to some issue of tribalism? I actually have some respect for some Republicans, or did until I looked at this election. No Chamber of Commerce Republican can justify McCain under any scenario that matches their ideology. I understand the kneejerk Religious Right being in the McCain camp with Gov Barbiedoll on the ticket, I understand that the Bush deadenders have no place to go, and I even understand the jingoistic war mongers are McCain enthusiasts, but this is not 42% of the population. I don't care how dismissive you are of the American electorate those people aren't 42%.

I cannot wrap my head around the numbers at this point. John McCain is a Republican, I don't give a rat's patoot about the McMaverick part of it and that is the Party who has run this economy into a wall. It has run it into a wall so hard that a leftist like myself is actually standing with the Banker's Bailout. The goddam Plutocratic Socialization Program gets my infuriated backing. I've had everybody and most of what I care about held hostage by a bunch of fat walleted greed headed idiot goddam plutocrats and I'm really furious to have to pay the ransom. But here's the deal, as furious as I am I cannot watch this descend into chaos and take the innocents with it. If this doesn't hold back the flood waters and it goes to hell anyhow I'm going to be a very difficult person to deal with.

Our history is replete with examples of economic distress and social upheavals, we've weathered them by keeping our heads and moving on. Today the general American public is better treated by its government than at any time in the past, with caveats to be sure. We've done pretty well since 1776 and my hope is that this at the edge of chaos moment is the point where clear thinking and change of mind occurs; because it sure doesn't occur in chaos. Chaos is when desperate people make desperate choices that are ill considered and bad people tend to rise and, frighteningly enough, this is a world wide issue.

Barack Obama is neither a savior nor a knight on a white horse; he is an able and apparently cool headed politician with pretty good ideas. John McCain lives in a fantasy world of Reagan sainthood and economic magical thinking composed of bromides as policies and ideology in place of thought. This is not 1929; this is 2008 and the economy of this era will move at lightning speed into disaster if this mess is allowed to fester. Today everything moves faster and bigger and is more interconnected than at any previous time. An erratic pissed off old man is not who we need and we need even less a magical thinker like Sarah Palin anywhere near the reins of power.

All I hope for with this $700 Billion ($1 Trillion and counting) Plutocrat Bailout is to buy some time. I honestly think that counting on it lasting until Inauguration Day is exaggerated confidence. The value of the junk paper written on top of the mortgage industry is so many multiples of the actual properties that it is mind numbing - it is so bad that no one actually knows how bad it is. If you aren't scared you aren't paying any attention. Or, you belong to the list of McCain people the "Kitty" ran.