Lehman Brothers and an opportunity for John McCain

This is a very high minded, but direct ad which directly addresses today's issue

http://hughhewitt.townhall.com/blog/g/848a4403-cbdf-4132-965e-57d6af216713

No susprise but just for your edification this was the result of failed government policies and not the free market.  this was the result of mostly Democrat  (and some RINO) poltical corruption at the expense of the taxpayers.  If government would stop sticking its nose in the mortage industry and stop bailing out bad business bahavior then this would havet played itself out and the market would already have corrected itself.  Not that I honestly expect a devout anti-capitalist like yourself to understand that.

We do not have a system of deregulation. You can say it until you are blue in the face, but when you have a system with the Fed, Sarbanes-Oxley, SEC, fannie mae (a creature of GOVT), etc. The question is NOT "Is there too little regulation?" That is a naive and false view. We have lots of regulation.

The question is do we have the right regulation, the right oversight, and the right amount of freedom of markets to absorb and manage risk while not overextending risk that can be systemic.

The fact is that new financial instruments have had undefined market risks and they blew up. Long term capital blew up in 1998 on a similar scenario of poorly modelled risk. Extending understanding, oversight, and risk/coverage over such derivative instruments is useful and possible needed, BUT THAT IS A FAR CRY FROM THE SIMPLISTIC "Oh, we had a laissez faire system and we need 'change'" It is simplistic, ignorant, wrong.

It's also a repudiation of the long-held view that markets alone can best regulate themselves.

Again, I missed the memo where someone was suggesting abolishing the Fed, eliminating capital reserve ratio requiements, undoing SEC reporting requirements and mark-to-market on capital investments, and repealing Sarbanes-Oxley, etc.

I notice these are a journalists words and not yours, but its not the first time a journalist made a breathlessly broad-brush statement that is wrong. They are pushing a phony meme, perhaps to aid the Democrat or perhaps simply because they dont know the financial markets that well.

"It's only a model" - MPATHG

This is what McCain needs to say: Obama saw the Iraq problems as a political opportunity, blamed Bush and then proposed the wrong answer and made the wrong predictions. Now Obama sees the economic problems we face as a political opportunity. He again blames Bush and then proposes the wrong answers and makes the wrong predictions.

McCain needs to get back to COUNTRY FIRST and announce that he intends to put COUNTRY FIRST by having a commission look into this and report within the first 100 days in office. The goal should not be new and more regulations, the goal should be reform and fixing what we have.

The fact is that markets go 'too far' sometimes, and often when they do an underlying government incitement is behind it.

If McCain goes for REFORM of Government oversight and not mere 'more, more, more' Govt regulation, we might be better off.

Yes, there was a social contract broken. When CEOs get golden parachutes and companies go bankrupt, the stockholders should be outraged. But that's not the main thing here.

When fannie mae gives ex-Clinton appointees like Gorelick $50 million and dispenses money to Democrats in Congress and the end result is lack of fannie mae oversight *AND* the taxpayers are stuck with the bill - that is a good case for reform.  Remember: Obama brought Fannie Mae ex-CEO Johnson to be his VP vetter. Johnson and the other 'insiders' have been at the Fannie Mae trough.

A commission is a GREAT idea. Why? Because it stops the usual Congressional practice of passing bad laws right away or doing a quick fix ('hey, lets write a check to everyone').

If the Democrats have their way, the guilty parties will be on the commission and will end up indicted the innocent and shooting the wounded.

I suggest some people outside it all. Romney maybe. Or Maybe Mayor Bloomberg of NY. Or Lawrence Lindsay, former Fed member. Someone not part of the mess but who wont be cowed or awed by the financial wizards and who knows enough about the business so they can cut through the cr8p and get to the heart of the problems. There will never be a risk free market and to try to create one may be a cure worse than the disease, otoh, systemic risks should be mitigated.