Against Mccain

AS HE CAMPAIGNS for the nomination of the Republican Party Senator John McCain certainly does a good job of infuriating the conservative base of the party.

For instance, you’d think, crafty politician that he is, that he’d have learned how not to talk like a Democrat, playing the class warfare card, and all.

But no. Last night at the Republican California debate at the Reagan presidential library, he did a good job running as John Kerry against Mitt Romney.

I know how to lead.

I led the largest squadron in the United States Navy. And I did it out of patriotism, not for profit.

Oh, I see. So Mitt Romney’s career, including a long stint at Bain Capital creating jobs and wealth, just doesn’t measure up?

Then there’s the Wall Street bashing bit, getting a late hit in on the mortgage meltdown.

I think that there’s some greedy people on Wall Street that perhaps need to be punished.

Actually, I think there are some people on Capitol Hill who need to be punished. Who is it that passes laws to keep sluicing money and subsidies at the housing market? Who is it that has been bullying the lending institutions for decades to lend money to minorities? Who is it who cranked interest rates down to one percent in the early 2000s? And who is it who was carrying water for politically-connected S&L magnate Charles Keating back in the 1980s? And what was Senator McCain doing two or three years ago when it was obvious that the real-estate boom was getting out of hand?

It fascinating how pols like Senator McCain go for Wall Street all the time. It’s all smoke and mirrors, of course. Wall Street runs the government bond market, the market that floats the government’s paper out to the world. Wall Street is the most important thing in the world for the government and for the Senators that slosh the feed into the government’s trough.

I’d say that if there’s someone that’s really greedy and really needing to be punished it is the pols that vote to run big deficits, and get Wall Street to push Treasury Bills and Treasury Notes and Treasury Bonds out into the world to fund the deficits. And then with the other hand they sit around doing nothing while the Federal Reserve lets the dollar decline so that bond holders are left holding dollar-denominated bonds worth a lot less today than they were a few yers ago.

Heck of a deal for the US government and its senatorial functionaries. Heck of a deal for Wall Street. But not so good for the folks that bought the bonds.

Who’s the greedy one there, Senator?

Seriously, do we really want this guy in the White House where he can govern like a Democrat and have the Republicans take the fall for more bloated government and more attacks on the First Amendment?

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Christopher Chantrill blogs at www.roadtothemiddleclass.com. His Road to the Middle Class is forthcoming.