I’ve always considered Phil Gramm to resemble a week-old tuna-fish sandwich for some reason. On white bread, with lots of mayonnaise, and not much else. He was a Senator from Texas during many of the years I lived there, and to be honest, a reason for leaving. He’s been back in the news recently, saying several of those peculiar Grammarian phrases that endeared him to oil industry honchos, Wall Street Republicans, and other scum.
Froma Harrop of Real Clear Politics writes:
McCain’s former economic adviser is ex-Texas Sen. Phil Gramm. On Dec. 15, 2000, hours before Congress was to leave for Christmas recess, Gramm had a 262-page amendment slipped into the appropriations bill. It forbade federal agencies to regulate the financial derivatives that greased the skids for passing along risky mortgage-backed securities to investors.
And that, my friends, is why everything’s falling apart. That is why the taxpayers are now on the hook for the follies of Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, Bear Stearns and now the insurance giant AIG to the tune of $85 billion.
…
And do you know where the problems lay at AIG? They weren’t in its main insurance business. They were in its derivatives-trading unit.
Last February, Fortune Magazine called Gramm “McCain’s Econ Brain.” Gramm lost the official title of economic adviser for making an impolitic remark about this being “a nation of whiners.” But Gramm’s belief in letting speculators do as they please was never an issue. And even after he left the campaign, Gramm had been mentioned as a possible treasury secretary in a McCain administration.
Another Gramm contribution was the “Enron loophole,” which prevented federal oversight of Enron’s electronic energy trading. Such favors proved very expensive to consumers but profitable to the Gramms. Enron CEO Ken Lay chaired Gramm’s 1992 re-election campaign, and wife Wendy Gramm spent years on the Enron board, earning as much as $1.8 million, according to Public Citizen, a consumer advocate.
So McCain’s reassurances to the little people that he won’t let what’s happening to them happen again is rather unconvincing. McCain now talks about the need for more regulations, but he’s been highly stingy with the for-instances. He wants a commission to look into it.
[From RealClearPolitics – Articles – McCain and the Meltdown]