Ok, it IS about the Economy

"The challenges facing our financial system today are more evidence that too many folks in Washington and on Wall Street weren't minding the store. Eight years of policies that have shredded consumer protections, loosened oversight and regulation, and encouraged outsized bonuses to CEOs while ignoring middle-class Americans have brought us to the most serious financial crisis since the Great Depression"

Barack Obama

I was going to write about education today, about how our kids will be prepared to compete in a global economy if we have one of the least effective education systems (18th out of 24!) in the industrialized world and are losing ground on graduation rates. I’ll have to save that conversation for another day, though, because today, clearly one has to talk about the economy.

In case you’ve missed it, you should be reassured to know that on a day when two of Wall Street’s biggest financial institutions have completely collapsed, and AIG, one of the nation’s leading insurers, is faltering, John McCain told an audience that he still believes that “the fundamentals of our economy are strong”. No, this wasn’t an old quote from a stump speech that some aide forgot to parse, this was McCain saying, in the moment, as he discussed the woes of Wall Street, that the ground our economy stands on is solid.

Then again, President Bush said the same thing today, too. Go figure. This is the McCain platform—really everything is ok, and if we just tax (rich people) a little less, cut spending (from programs like Social Security and Medicaid), and “reform the oversight and overseeing committees” we can protect America’s investments, or something.

If you didn’t see Sarah Palin’s bit on domestic policy with Charles Gibson you can view the whole 10 minutes or so below, or just look at the first few where she tries to explain what their economic platform is. At the 0:58 mark is my favorite quote—two days before Lehman goes belly up she says “government has to get out of the way, in some respects, of the private sector.”

Now, in principle, this isn’t an entirely bad idea, except that lack of oversight and regulation seems to be one of the key factors in today’s crisis:

“The real answer to the current problem would, of course, have been to take preventive action before we reached this point. Even leaving aside the obvious need to regulate the shadow banking system — if institutions need to be rescued like banks, they should be regulated like banks — why were we so unprepared for this latest shock?”

Paul Krugman, NY Times

“The current financial market turmoil - highlighted by the bankruptcy filing of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. (LEH) and the government takeover of Fannie Mae (FNM) and Freddie Mac (FRE) - has erased faith in the U.S. financial system and will have a long-lasting effect on the nation's economy… The investment banking industry has always objected to any Fed oversight but I think Fed oversight is mandatory, I do not see how investments banks can continue objecting ... but Congress is going to have to authorize it."

Former U.S. Rep. Jim Leach --CNN Money

At a rally today, Joe Biden called the McCain-Palin camp out for being out of touch with the real economic concerns of America

Tomorrow I’ll draw closer comparisons between the actual economic plans offered by the two parties, but here is a table comparing tax plans put out by the Obama Campaign.

Thanks for reading, and if you’re as mad as I am, donate to the Obama campaign—you don’t have to be a high-roller to influence politics this time around, even (especially) if you’ve never given before, your donation of $10, $25… really whatever you can afford CAN make a difference. 

Obama raised over 66 Million in August from over 500,000 new donors...More than 2.5 Million people now own a part of this campaign.  If you are already one of them, thanks!