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Obama vs. McCain -- 46 days to go. Wall Street Meltdown (534 hits)

The closer we get to the election, the more Presidential he appears. I have heard that "crises don't develop character, they reveal character." I think Obama showed presidential character today.

In the midst of the financial meltdown, Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama on Friday called for an economic plan for working families, saying, "We cannot only have a plan for Wall Street. "We must also help Main Street," he said.
While "tough new regulations on financial institutions" are needed, the Illinois senator called for an emergency economic plan for working families.
Obama spoke after meeting with his economic advisers in Coral Gables, Florida.

"It is critical at this point that the markets and the public have confidence that their work will be unimpeded by partisan wrangling, and that leaders in both parties work in concert to solve the problem at hand," Obama said.

In my view, Obama demonstrated Presidential poise and a mastery of understanding of the situation while McCain continued to point fingers and offer one liners as the solution.

Posted By: Roger E Madison Jr
Saturday, September 20th 2008 at 12:29AM
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Darien,
Thanks for your supporting comments. All of us need to reach out to others to make sure that we keep the groundswell growing. By election day, we should have the numbers to overwhelm McCain and create the change we hope for. It is up to us -- Obama supporters -- to make it happen.

Saturday, September 20th 2008 at 11:51AM
Roger E Madison Jr

Deeana,
Here is an answer that attempts to answer your question from www.factcheck.org:

The Real Deal

So who is to blame? There's plenty of blame to go around, and it doesn't fasten only on one party or even mainly on what Washington did or didn't do. As The Economist magazine noted recently, the problem is one of "layered irresponsibility ... with hard-working homeowners and billionaire villains each playing a role." Here's a partial list of those alleged to be at fault:

The Federal Reserve, which slashed interest rates after the dot-com bubble burst, making credit cheap.

Home buyers, who took advantage of easy credit to bid up the prices of homes excessively.

Congress, which continues to support a mortgage tax deduction that gives consumers a tax incentive to buy more expensive houses.

Real estate agents, most of whom work for the sellers rather than the buyers and who earned higher commissions from selling more expensive homes.

The Clinton administration, which pushed for less stringent credit and downpayment requirements for working- and middle-class families.

Mortgage brokers, who offered less-credit-worthy home buyers subprime, adjustable rate loans with low initial payments, but exploding interest rates.

Former Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan, who in 2004, near the peak of the housing bubble, encouraged Americans to take out adjustable rate mortgages.

Wall Street firms, who paid too little attention to the quality of the risky loans that they bundled into Mortgage Backed Securities (MBS), and issued bonds using those securities as collateral.

The Bush administration, which failed to provide needed government oversight of the increasingly dicey mortgage-backed securities market.

An obscure accounting rule called mark-to-market, which can have the paradoxical result of making assets be worth less on paper than they are in reality during times of panic.

Collective delusion, or a belief on the part of all parties that home prices would keep rising forever, no matter how high or how fast they had already gone up.

The U.S. economy is enormously complicated. Screwing it up takes a great deal of cooperation. Claiming that a single piece of legislation was responsible for (or could have averted) is just political grandstanding. We have no advice to offer on how best to solve the financial crisis. But these sorts of partisan caricatures can only make the task more difficult.

Perhaps this will help.

Friday, October 3rd 2008 at 4:44PM
Roger E Madison Jr

One of the realities of this current crisis is this:
NONE OF US HAVE BEEN HERE BEFORE!
- THE FED DOESN'T KNOW WHAT TO DO.
- THE CONGRESS DOESN'T KNOW WHAT TO DO.
- THE PRESIDENT DOESN'T KNOW WHAT TO DO (NOR SECRETARY PAULSON).
- BANKS, INVESTMENT COMPANIES, AND WALL STREET INVESTORS DON'T KNOW WHAT TO DO.
- WORLD MARKETS -- CHINA, EUROPE, RUSSIA -- DON'T KNOW WHAT TO DO.

HOWEVER, they all have levers to pull to prevent a global depression. And they will.

This will benefit those at, or near the top. It is still true, "when Wall Street sneezes, Main Street gets a cold, and Black poor folks die from pneumonia." There are no easy answers. Perhaps we will start to cling together to survive and learn how to protect ourselves better going forward. In the final analysis, there will be a recovery, but, as always, we will be the last to get hired and the first to get fired.

Saturday, October 4th 2008 at 8:46AM
Roger E Madison Jr

Now that many of the Americans have forced their political representatives to listen to then and respected there purpost that these people gave them those vote to go to D.C. and speak for them, Will be more proned to vote them out if they do not continue to show all of them this respect.

Power to the People!!!!!Right Roger?
Thursday, April 10th 2014 at 6:47PM
ROBINSON IRMA

Hay Clark(where you been)I ask you and everyone out there what does this "come out of the past" and "poor people living beyond their means'" mean in Debate plain old English?
As Ron Paul said, this Empire(America)can no longer afford to support her self. Me it was the run away price of gas at the pump that put the nail in the lobby-D.C. business as usual coffin...This is over...which do you pick:recession or depression?

D-E-P-R-E-S-S-I-O-N
Thursday, April 10th 2014 at 6:47PM
ROBINSON IRMA