Barack Obama Elected President!

[Greg's GL]

I'll hold my breath with ya, Roman. I'm still waiting to see if McCain has a stance on equal pay. I asked that question a couple times a few pages back.

And I'm still curious how McCain supporters feel about the Dems wanting the pay/severance pay provision on the bailout package. In all fairness, GoldenDogs did answer that one, but I'm curious what others have to say....

[Roman]

I'm still waiting on McCain's stance on sex ed. for children. I asked about it and asked again, and have yet to see any links to anything refering to it. All I got was opinions of what he was thinking, which blew me away seeing as I didn't know so many knew him so well.

[Roman]

http://www.americablog.com/2008/09/nyt-mcc...bbyist-was.html

NYT: McCain chief of staff/lobbyist was paid $2m by Fannie and Freddie for access to McCain and to stop regulation of banking industry

[Roman]

http://www.crooksandliars.com/2008/09/22/j...of-our-economy/

John McCain has no regrets being Mr DeRegulator on Wall Street: No, I think the deregulation was probably helpful to the growth of our economy

[Wales2004]

So by your logic, if a Republican draws a crowd it means that many many people are interested in the Repbulican stance on issues.....but if a Democrat draws a crowd then many many people are there for a concert?

Here's a hint as to why I think McCain is misleading and why your post gave me the impression that you have contempt for Democrats:

Do you see how someone could take that your saying that the Democrats have been waiting for the recent events on Wall Street as meaning that the Democrats wanted it to happen? Maybe you can see how rephrasing it might have given it the meaning you intended, This is the same as with ads that I find misleading from both parties and also from other groups.

Do you think McCain has ever approved any misleading ads in this campaign cycle?

[Wales2004]

What do you want on your Tombstone?

[Greg's GL]

You rock.

[Jess]

Well, when Jay Leno runs for president and pretends to be just like us then it will become an issue. Otherwise, it really makes no difference and is a very misleading argument. It is similar to comparing the public accountability required of people posting on the internet to the Secretary of State.

Also the fuel consumption of an campaign plane is quite small when divided by the number of people required to travel (candidates, traveling media and staff) and when compared to the amount of fuel that would required to transport the same number of people traveling the same distance using ground transportation.

[Greg's GL]

Good point, Jess.

I don't want to get bogged down in these non-issues created by the media, but I will say this. It is interesting that when a celebrity has something to say politically, they are shot down or belittled by the Reps. However, they have no problem using them as an example when something like this raises it's ugly little head.

Just sayin....

[Greg's GL]

I really debated whether I should even put this link on here because it's related to SP. However, it is a fairly balanced article and speaks to the Rep's "Original Mavericks" tagline. It also gives some perspective to the much discussed younger vote.

Alaskan students split on Palin nomination

[Wales2004]

Okay Jess is the one that really rocks.

Jess, I'm still mulling over what you said about reverting to prior bankruptcy law and I can see your point and I know it's probably a matter of my deciding what is more important.

On the one hand, the move was to protect the credit card companies (who I have no issue with when they're issuing cards in good faith) from consumers who rack up massive debt and then file to avoid paying. The problem I do have with the card companies is when they continually entice people who already have credit problems or who have had prior bankruptcies into getting cards with over inflated interest rates.

I know bankruptcy laws are meant to protect certain types of consumers but lawyers, bankruptcy mills (paralegals and such), and bad faith debtors really milked the system. I have no issue with someone going into Chapter 13 and being required to undergo a specific number of hours of credit management counseling though. Many individual bankruptcies filed in Southern California were by debtors who were trying to avoid being evicted and were attempting to basically squat while the process played out.

[George008]

Hmmm..What's a good way of putting this without causing an uproar??

I believe CEO's should be signed on to be paid whatever the hiring company is willing to pay them. I think CEO's are being hired at their market value, much like prof. athletes.

Many think the salaries of athletes are absorbidant, but if any team is willing to pay the high salary then the market value of the player is what it is...

CEO's are usually signed on using a contract (again like atheltes), and this includes severance packages...If the CEO turns out to be lousy, they still get to leave with a nice package. It's just a risk that companies take upon hiring.

I don't believe it's the governments place to step in and try to regulate this matter...JMO.

[Roman]

Loan Titans Paid McCain Adviser Nearly $2 Million

Article Tools Sponsored By

By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK and CHARLES DUHIGG

Published: September 21, 2008

Senator John McCain’s campaign manager was paid more than $30,000 a month for five years as president of an advocacy group set up by the mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to defend them against stricter regulations, current and former officials say.

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Andrew Councill for The New York Times

A 2004 photograph from a report by the Homeownership Alliance, an advocacy group for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, shows John McCain with Ken Guenther, a former chairman of the group, left, and David Lereah of the National Association of Realtors.

Mr. McCain, the Republican candidate for president, has recently begun campaigning as a critic of the two companies and the lobbying army that helped them evade greater regulation as they began buying riskier mortgages with implicit federal backing. He and his Democratic rival, Senator Barack Obama, have donors and advisers who are tied to the companies.

But last week the McCain campaign stepped up a running battle of guilt by association when it began broadcasting commercials trying to link Mr. Obama directly to the government bailout of the mortgage giants this month by charging that he takes advice from Fannie Mae’s former chief executive, Franklin Raines, an assertion both Mr. Raines and the Obama campaign dispute.

Incensed by the advertisements, several current and former executives of the companies came forward to discuss the role that Rick Davis, Mr. McCain’s campaign manager and longtime adviser, played in helping Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac beat back regulatory challenges when he served as president of their advocacy group, the Homeownership Alliance, formed in the summer of 2000. Some who came forward were Democrats, but Republicans, speaking on the condition of anonymity, confirmed their descriptions.

“The value that he brought to the relationship was the closeness to Senator McCain and the possibility that Senator McCain was going to run for president again,” said Robert McCarson, a former spokesman for Fannie Mae, who said that while he worked there from 2000 to 2002, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac together paid Mr. Davis’s firm $35,000 a month. Mr. Davis “didn’t really do anything,” Mr. McCarson, a Democrat, said.

Mr. Davis’s role with the group has bubbled up as an issue in the campaign, but the extent of his compensation and the details of his role have not been reported previously.

Mr. McCain was never a leading critic or defender of the mortgage giants, although several former executives of the companies said Mr. Davis did draw Mr. McCain to a 2004 awards banquet that the companies’ Homeownership Alliance held in a Senate office building. The organization printed a photograph of Mr. McCain at the event in its 2004 annual report, bolstering its clout and credibility. The event honored several other elected officials, including at least two Democrats, Gov. Edward G. Rendell of Pennsylvania and Representative Artur Davis of Alabama.

In an interview Sunday night with CNBC and The New York Times, Mr. McCain noted that Mr. Davis was no longer working on behalf of the mortgage giants. He said Mr. Davis “has had nothing to do with it since, and I’ll be glad to have his record examined by anybody who wants to look at it.”

Asked about the reports of Mr. Davis’s role, a spokesman for Mr. McCain said that during the time when Mr. Davis ran the Homeownership Alliance, the senator had backed legislation to increase oversight of the mortgage companies’ accounting and executive compensation. The legislation, however, did not seek to change their anomalous structure as private companies with federal support.

The spokesman, Tucker Bounds, also noted that the Homeownership Alliance included nonprofit organizations like Habitat for Humanity and the Urban League. “It’s not controversial to promote homeownership and minority homeownership,” Mr. Bounds said. More than a half-dozen current and former executives, however, said the Homeownership Alliance was set up mainly to defend Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac by promoting their role in the housing market, and the two companies paid almost the entire cost of the group’s operations.

“They were financed largely, possibly exclusively, by Fannie and Freddie,” said William R. Maloni, a Democrat who is a former head of industry relations for Fannie Mae. “We thought it would be helpful to have someone who was a broadly recognized Republican to be the face of the organization, and that person became Rick Davis.” Mr. Maloni added, “Rick, for that purpose, turned out to be quite good.” (Several executives said Mr. Davis’s compensation was not unusual for the companies’ well-connected consultants.)

The federal bailout of the two mortgage giants has become an emblem of what critics say is the outdated or inadequate regulatory system that allowed the financial system to slide into crisis this summer.

At the time that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac recruited Mr. Davis to run the Homeownership Alliance in 2000, they were under new pressure from private industry rivals and deregulation-minded Republicans who argued that the two companies’ federal sponsorship gave them an unfair advantage and put taxpayers at risk. Critics of the companies had formed their own Washington-based advocacy group, FM Watch. They were pushing for regulations that would deter the companies from expanding into new areas, including riskier and more profitable mortgages.

Mr. Davis had recently returned to his lobbying firm from running Mr. McCain’s unexpectedly strong 2000 Republican primary campaign, which elevated Mr. McCain’s profile as a legislator and Mr. Davis’s as a lobbyist.

“You can say what you want about free-market distortions, but people like the system because it gets them into houses cheap,” Mr. Davis said to Institutional Investor magazine in 2000, adding that he would run the advocacy group out of his Alexandria, Va., lobbying firm.

The organization also hired Public Strategies, a communications firm that included former Bush adviser Mark McKinnon. Mr. Davis wrote letters and gave speeches for the group. In April 2001, he sent out a press release headlined, “It’s Tax Day — Do You Know Where Your Deductions Are? For Most Americans, They’re in Your Home.”

But by the end of 2005, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were recovering from accounting problems and re-examining costs, former executives said. The companies decided the Homeownership Alliance had outlived its usefulness, and it disappeared.

John Harwood contributed reporting.

[Greg's GL]

I see. Well, another issue that I guess we will have to respectfully disagree.

[Jess]

I tend to agree with you on bankruptcy laws. But, I also think the current credit system provides incentives for the market to engage in predatory practices. I believe very much that credit companies should be limited in the interest rates they can charge. I justify it along the lines that one: credit card companies are engaging in a form of price fixing and two, they are engaging in predatory practices and using information asymmetries as a mechanism.

Philosophically, I agree with you on bankruptcies. However, I think there needs to be some form of protection for consumers and the economy against what we are seeing now in the credit market.

You know, I agree with everyone who is troubled by the nation engaging in a trillion dollar bailout of the credit industry. I just find the entire notion offensive. However, there is no way around it. If we don't do the bailout, the nation and world economy are in a world of hurt.