American Sentinel

About the Author:  Born in Boston, I lived and worked in the D.C. area for a time, but have spent most of my life in Tennessee, where I graduated from the University of Tennessee. My political philosophy could best be described as eclectic, though mostly right of center. Read more from this author

After having to be called back from campaigning to Washington by President Bush, Obama sent an email to supporters that shows just how vacuous and confused he is.

In what is strangely called the basis of a “responsible” economic recovery plan, Obama puts forth three suggestions (you can also find them on his website):

• No Golden Parachutes — Taxpayer dollars should not be used to reward the irresponsible Wall Street executives who helmed this disaster.

• Main Street, Not Just Wall Street — Any bailout plan must include a payback strategy for taxpayers who are footing the bill and aid to innocent homeowners who are facing foreclosure.

• Bipartisan Oversight — The staggering amount of taxpayer money involved demands a bipartisan board to ensure accountability and oversight.

No Golden Parachutes:  This makes absolutely no sense.  The principal Wall Street investors in the subprime market were Merrill Lynch, Lehman Brothers, and Bear Stearns.  Lehman Brothers and Bear Stearns are already gone, and  Merrill Lynch was purchased by Bank of America.  This is merely populist, bloody-shirt waving.  Rile up the mob over the Wall Street fat cats.

Wall Street did pump a lot of money into the non-bank, subprime lenders.  They financed this business, created bonds and destabilized the market when the housing slump hit.  And they’ve, for the most part, already paid the price.  Even golden parachutes don’t work after you’ve hit the ground.

Main Street, Not Just Wall Street:  Frankly, I’m tempted to curse in this one.  First we have the bloody-shirt waving over Wall Street, then the suggestion is made, apparently, that companies reimburse the government (taxpayers) for their bailout.  This converts the bailout into just another risky loan, this time from the government, and completely destroys the concept of a bailout.  Either bail them out or don’t, but don’t saddle them with extra costs that will come back to the consumer.

Then we call the receivers of subprime mortgages “innocent homeowners”.  Here we have the favorite liberal concept, shifting blame.  I have news for you.  If you took out a mortgage that ate up 45% of your take-home pay and already demonstrated a poor payment history, everyone in that deal was irresponsible, including–but mostly–you.

Bipartisan Oversight: Well, I certainly hope someone will be standing at the door as the taxpayer money flies out of it.

One has to assume that Obama is not this dimwitted and that these suggestions are sort of a campaign stunt, but this sort of nonsensical garbage during a crisis is really unhelpful.  It confuses the public and assists only one cause: the election of Barack Obama.  But then again, that’s what all the

• Obama in the pocket of “big finance”
• Fear and Loathing on Capitol Hill
• GOP and Dems Absorb News of Lehman Brothers Bankruptcy: McCain Proposes Solutions, Obama Apportions Blame
• Petition Congress to vote no on the bailout
• As The Bottom Drops Out

This entry was posted on Thursday, September 25th, 2008 at 9:00 am and is filed under Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.