“Two years ago, I warned that the oversight of Fannie and Freddie was terrible, that we were facing a crisis because of it, or certainly serious problems,” Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., told CBS this morning. “The influence that Fannie and Freddie had in the inside the Beltway, old boy network, which led to this kind of corruption is unacceptable and I warned about it a couple of years ago.”
How does this claim of foresight square with this interview that McCain gave to the Keene (NH) Sentinel, discussing the subprime mortgage crisis, in December 2007?
Q: “Well the dimension of this problem may be surprising to a lot of people, but to many people, to many others there were feelings that there was something amiss, something was going too fast, something was a little too hot. Going back several years. Were you one of them? Or, I mean you’re a busy guy, you’re looking at a lot of things, maybe subprime mortgages wasn’t something you focused on every day. Were you surprised?
McCain: “Yeah. And I was surprised at the dot-com collapse and I was surprised at other times in our history. I don’t know if surprised is the word, but…
Q: “S&Ls?”
McCain: “I don’t — what did you say?”
Q: “The S&Ls.”
McCain: “Yeah, the S&Ls.”
Q: “Is this bigger than that?
McCain: “I don’t know the dimensions of this. It’s hard to know what the dimensions are. As I say, I never thought I’d pick up the paper and see a city in Norway is somehow dramatically impacted by it. When I say ‘surprised’ I’m not surprised when in capitalist systems that there’s greed and excess. I think it was Teddy Roosevelt who said ‘unfettered capitalism leads to corruption’ or something like that, that people have disputed for years.
“But so, in this whole new derivative stuff, and SIBs and all of this kind of new ways of packaging mortgages together and all that is something that frankly I don’t know a lot about.
Three full years before that, one Congressman did warn us, the supposed nutjob Ron Paul hit the nail on the head in 2003.
Sorry John, you need some sleep. Can you please leave the running of the country to people who can actually do it? Your POW status is just that, you’re a damn ex-POW, that’s it! Get over it, you’re not qualified, go home and read a book and have a glass of milk. We don’t need you! Get used to it! We don’t your sidekick Sarah either, she’s just a fckng cnt, right?
How voters in good conscience ‘rehire’ another Bush republican for the future of this is an enigna.
I can see rooting and supporting a losing footbal team year after year, but to disfunctional government continue? Wow.
It’s either Nazi Germany like brainwash of the population or having a religious state is really an in thing these days. How fcking bad do things need to be? I’m beginning to think there is no news coverage in middle america.
Can Somebody please write me a Firefox filter that will block all pages with the words McCain, Obama, Biden or Palin. I already know who I’m voting against (there isn’t anybody I want to vote for)
#1 – okay, so who do you suggest we get that are actually capable of running the country? We’ve had 8 years of Reaganomics, 4 years of Bush Sr, 8 years of Clinton, 8 years of Bush Jr and I’d same none of them (or the idiots in Congress) were capable of running the country.
On a side note, I always find it amusing when either politician or anyone refers to “running the country”. I’d settle for someone (anyone) who could simply run the government with a little competence. The country runs itself.
#4, Chuck,
On your sidenote, The country doesn’t run itself. We the people are the bosses. We elect representatives from among ourselves to run the country. Generally the people we pick are very competent. The incompetent are usually voted out at the end of their term. The few who are corrupt are usually found out.
It ain’t perfect but it is better than the rest.
John McCain _IS_ the good old boy network.
#2 Dallas. “Bush Republican:” in your dreams. This is the guy who almost ran on the Democrat Party VP ticket and almost had the former Dem VP candidate as his own. Some Bush Republican.
RBG
I heard hannity on the radio today read from a 2005 McCain speech before congress on some sort of hearings about Fanny and Freddy. He really spoke the words about dangerous accounting methods (so that top execs could get huge bonuses) at both institutions were creating problems that could be disastrous fo the US economy.
Know I will admit I have no other context about this speech yet – was there anything to vote on? how they voted? what action was taken based on the hearing? But I wouldn’t be so quick to brand him as the establishment and Obama as the reformer.
Oh give me a break. McCain wouldn’t know a mortgage if it came up and bit him on the ass, let alone the US (and now international) financial sector and it’s relationship to governments, central banks, and regulatory bodies.
Man, reading that page from Ron Paul from five years ago was positively spooky! Also infuriating! People already could see this happening FIVE YEARS AGO, yet nothing was done to prevent it. If anything, this type of behavior was encouraged!
What has happened to the ‘rock ribbed’ Republicans I grew up with? Back in the (good? ehh!) old days, Republicans were mature men in good suits who knew their business and wouldn’t put up with this kind of nonsense. They would have said things like “Sure, making a little money is all well and good, but to poison the entire fiscal underpinnings of the whole country and half the Western World? It’s Just Not Done.” They believed that corporations should be run for the benefit of the shareholders, not to initiate CEOs into the ranks of the super-rich.
But then the ’80s ‘Reagan Revolution’ happened, and Gordon (“Greed is good”) Gecko came to epitomize the cocaine-and-ego-fueled orgy of compulsive acquisitiveness and Michael Milken and thousands of others like him became the heart and soul of the Grand Old Party. ‘Revolution,’ hah. Revolting, certainly…
Even now, nearly 30 years later, McCain may be one of these old-fashioned Republicans, but if he is, he dare not show it, even a little bit, or the party will find a way to dump him faster than you can say junk bond funded LBO.
Not to let the Republicans in Congress or in the White House, off the hook. But I believe both parties are equally responsible for this mess. If the democrats really wanted to do something about it, five years ago. They could have raised an unholy fuss, in spite of any majority vote against them. But it seems that anything that’s done in Congress is always neutralized by the two party rivalry. Which is their excuse for doing nothing about any serious problem. And yet, when there’s enough lobbying behind something like the Free Trade Agreement. The vote is magically 99% in favor! What the h*ll happened to the rivalry there?! It’s a blatant myth, that’s what it is. Instead of congressmen spending their time to figure out the right thing to do. Most of them are on the phones to the others, arranging for how many of them will oppose a bill, and how many will support it. Regardless of what it’s for. And only sensitive to each member’s reputation, with his home state. Or whether it even matters with their voters, that they’re a total stooge on such important matters. And if all else fails, they can always have the Congressional Record doctored. Which they’ve done more times that we know. So it’s not just big business that doesn’t have “transparent” practices. Congress is just as guilty.
Here’s a nice little MSNBC.com article on why McCain SHOULD know something about the mortgage mess. His long time friend, Phil Gramm, helped create it. Now he might be McCain’s choice for Treasury secretary. When he’s not being a Swiss Banking lobbyist.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24844889
I remember hearing a quote, Mark Twain perhaps, that went something like this
“It is impossible to get someone to understand a problem, much less take action, if their very livelihood depends on their not understanding the problem”
In order for any politician to get elected – it takes allot of money, which in turn buys power and support. Our politicians are owned, or they never get elected to office – the people never hear of them, much less have a chance to be brainwashed through media. Inside Washington DC, the only things that matter are power and money. They are interchangable. The only thing that varies is the exchange rate. I trust the same applies to most / all state and local government. The word here is greed.
Having worked for beltway companies since I left the military almost 20 years ago, it is my observation that the citizens of this country have never controlled, much less run their government. The term is lobbiest, working at the behest of the very rich and powerful – names you never hear in the press.
Ben Franklin was once quoted, or so I have heard, as he left the final Continental Congress after finishing the US Constitution;
“We gave you a republic. It is up to the people to keep it”.
How true . . .
But I thought our economy was strong Mr McCain?
Do you really want to trust your 401k to Obama as he travels his journey of “personal discovery”?
Or maybe SO. http://tinyurl.com/macwarning
“For years I have been concerned about the regulatory structure that governs Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac–known as Government-sponsored entities or GSEs–and the sheer magnitude of these companies and the role they play in the housing market. OFHEO’s report this week does nothing to ease these concerns. In fact, the report does quite the contrary. OFHEO’s report solidifies my view that the GSEs need to be reformed without delay.”
Research is a terrible thing, isn’t it?
[Concern and action are two different things, read Ron Pauls proposal…..ed.]
McCain has a deer in the headlights thing going on.
# 15 jbenson2
“Do you really want to trust your 401k to Obama as he travels his journey of “personal discovery”?”
AH HA HA HA HA HA HA! AH HA HA HA HA HA!
That is really funny! I think I thought that when you people voted Bush into office.
# 16 Matt Garrett
Maybe he forgot. He is old you know. lol
And yet under a Republican Congress with a Republican President they couldn’t get the bill past the introduction stage? Is that what his presidency would be like?
Also, I thought he was against Regulation? That bill has a WHOLE LOT of regulation in it and he claims he was against that. So which is it? For or against? Or was he for it before he was against it? Remember that one? Sucks when karma hits you in the ass doesn’t it?
I for one won’t hold it against him because I see it as progress in his thought. He has learned something new and has corrected his view.
So McCain was calling for reforms of Fannie and Freddie in 2005. Barack Obama showed up that year, and quickly took money from those two. In 4 years, he raised more money from Fannie and Freddie than any other Senator not named Chris Dodd has in the last twenty years. Plus Franklin Raines and Jim Johnson are two of his advisors.
McCain helped cause this crisis with the ‘reforms’ that passed after the Enron collapse.
http://tinyurl.com/4unu6k
Now companies have to revalue every quarter, which helped cause the panic to spread. With no buyers, the values dropped to zero even though the underlying value wasn’t so bad.
#10 “People already could see this happening FIVE YEARS AGO, yet nothing was done to prevent it. If anything, this type of behavior was encouraged!”
Actually, after that legislation was introduced but was shot down. Obama voted against this.
Also, the head of Obama’s VP search comm. was a former CEO of Fannie or Freddie. In addition, Obama is #2 in the Senate for taking campaign contributions from those two institutions…
If you’re going to comment on it, McCullough, you may notice he was speaking on the Senate floor and encouraged the Senate to pass the reform legislation before Senate. THE BILL WAS KILLED by the DEMOCRATS.
It helps TO READ.
# 21 Paddy-O
The S. 190 [109th]: Federal Housing Enterprise Regulatory Reform Act of 2005 legislation was never voted on you dumb ass!
The housing crisis also has a root in the whole push for boosting housing for poor people that came from the likes of Barack Obama and his community organizers. The CRA is a culprit, and the higher interest rates and easy lending sent things over.
#22, Matt,
Although you should also see #23, “J”‘s post, you overlook something.
The Republicans controlled the Senate with a comfortable majority. They controlled the House with a comfortable majority. They controlled the White House. So how the hell did the Democrats “kill” the bill?
Naa, don’t answer. No sense making yourself look more idiotic than you already are.