Thursday, April 08, 2010

If you Think This One is Funny Lookin'
You Shouldda SeenThe Other Candidate

Plenty of people (that would be me, your honor) get frustrated with the same-old same-old of the Obama economic team--a fire department run by former arsonists. But it might be worth remembering that it could have been worse. Remember who was John McCain's go-to guy on economics, the man who probably would have been Secretary of Treasury?

Remember? That would be Phil ("a nation of whiners") Gramm, and if the fingerprints of Larry Summers and Tim Geithner can be found on the corps of the late bubble, I'd say the body is simply slathered with Gramm's DNA. So far as I can see, there never was a louder, more implacable--nor more effective--voice for financial deregulation than Gramm, the man who gave us the repeal of Glass Steagall, and the one-man hit squad who put a stake through the heart of the campaign to deregulate derivatives.

Gramm seems to have mostly cloaked himself in demure silence since the full implications of his destructiveness have become apparent to all. In this sense, he is the anti-Cheney: the guy who seems to hope we will forget the mischief he afflicted on us, rather than call attention to it every day. Maybe he is just too involved with his day job comforting the comfortable at USB AG. At any rate, I'd still count Gramm as exhibit A for the proposition that we ought to be careful about educating the underclasses: they'll only misuse it and do us all harm.

1 comment:

swift said...

phil gramm ranks about as low as they get ... when he was a democratic house member on the budget ctte he got caught running to a house gop meeting with a box full of confidental democratic budget ctte info. his wife counseled and consulted for people he was supposed to legislatively regulate. he was shameless. the only honorable thing he ever did i know of was resign his seat and tun for reelection as a republican, instead of switching after being elected on a democratic ticket.