John McCain’s lush life may be coming back to haunt him. But it has nothing to do with Halloween. From the KeatingEconomics website:
The Keating scandal is eerily similar to today’s credit crisis, where a lack of regulation and cozy relationships between the financial industry and Congress has allowed banks to make risky loans and profit by bending the rules. And in both cases, John McCain’s judgment and values have placed him on the wrong side of history.
We’ve talked about McCain’s cronies: folks like Charlie Black, Rick Davis and McCain’s other lobbyist buddies whose clients stand to make millions more from their McCain access if he’s elected president.
We’ve talked about Phil Gramm, whose deregulation zeal has been matched by McCain’s similar deregulation policies and philosophies.
There’s Mark Buse, McCain’s current Senate chief of staff, who has been through the revolving door from lobbyist to staffer a few too many times. Turns out Buse lobbied not just for telecoms, but also was hired specifically as a Freddie Mac lobbyist because of his close relationship with McCain. Just like Rick Davis. Cozy.
Why have all of these folks spent their lobbying and influence peddling careers buzzing around McCain? Because it works.
Because they get a return on their investment with McCain or they wouldn’t bother. That’s how influence peddler’s work their game — and McCain has been a good Senator to game over the years: “The Keating Five involved all the things that have brought the modern crisis. Senator McCain has not learned the lesson, and has continued to follow policies that are going to produce a disaster.”
Below is a trailer for a longer film that will be available at KeatingEconomics at noon ET. It’s going to be an interesting day.
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