BernieHund: The Political Watchdog

It’s been a rough week and it isn’t even over. So, the question remains what is going on in the financial world?

All weekend it was reported that the Fed and Treasury leaders were meeting with or on the phone with Lehman Brothers and possible buyers. Apparently, it was a case of mental masturbation for those in charge. The buyers walked away. The government walked away. And, Lehman Brothers was left holding the bankruptcy filing papers on Sunday night.

Attention turned to AIG, the insurance company… and its holdings. For a reason few really understand, our government decided it would save AIG. Was it the luck of the draw? Or, is there some profound reason that Main Street just doesn’t get?

Of course, we have been given reasons for the government’s actions, or lack of action in the case of Lehman. It has been said that Lehman Brothers should have seen it coming for the past six months, and did nothing to change course. On the other hand, AIG is too big to let it fall. Go figure. There has to be more to it than that.

Either way, Lehman Brothers’ employees around the world have packed up their things and left the buildings. These newly unemployed will only add to the every growing population of American jobless. AIG will probably contine to maintain most of its employees, but chances are they, too, have started taking the family pictures home.

The presidential candidates are scrambling to come up with a response. A couple of days ago, the McCain campaign was talking about change and mavericks. Today, well… today, they are back to experience.

After several weeks spent railing against the “good old boys network” and the “Washington crowd” in trying to position the nominee and running mate Sarah Palin as a “team of mavericks,” the McCain camp spent the beginning of this week touting the Arizona Republican’s credentials as chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee.

During an off-camera briefing with reporters Tuesday morning, the campaign’s senior policy adviser, Douglas Holtz-Eakin, was asked what kind of skills McCain had that made him especially qualified to handle the current economic crisis.

“You have to have the ability to look and identify a crisis, call it a crisis, not pretend that it’s fine and let it go on,” Holtz-Eakin said. “We’ve seen, for example, Freddie and Fannie go on for years. No one’s bothered to stop it. So call it what it is — straight talk. Secondly, you want to take your experiences on the Commerce Committee, apply it to the problem, and also consult with great people.”

So, with all the experience and tenure and the Chairmanship of the Commerce Committee, we have to assume that it means nothing… or McCain is just out of touch and doesn’t get it. He has been in a key position for years to have led the charge to change the regulations or create regulations for the financial institutions. Instead, McCain has railed against regulations for years. It has only been within the last few weeks that John McCain has begun to see the need to regulate the greedy on Wall Street.

On the other hand, Barack Obama, a man of “little experience” began writing letters to the Fed and the Treasury as early as 2006, questioning the regulations governing the same financial institutions that today are on bended knees with hats in hands, begging for money to bail them out of a mess they created.

As with the War in Iraq, Barack Obama showed good judgment in voting against the way. Barack Obama realized there was an economic tsunami heading our way in 2006 while others were sleeping at the helm. Obama’s philosophy seems to be if you don’t break it, you don’t have to buy it.