If McCain loved this country so much, why did he assist in destroying our S&L institutions? McCain pulled a real Mr. Potter by getting rid of all the “Bailey’s” savings and loans who offered non-predatory loans to young couples for a fixed, low percentage 30-yr. mortgage on a house.
He was one of the Keating Five that nearly took down the economy because of the S&L crisis in the 80’s. Over 1500 bankers went to jail! Since then, they changed the laws to make that type of fraud legal.
McCain may not have passed a single law that improved this nation greatly in his 36-yr. career in Congress, and that alone is his real legacy. What he DID contribute to is the private banking industry’s monolithic rise in money creation abuse, the financialization of the economy, legalized fraud, asset-buying sprees, stock buybacks, soaring speculation while starving the nation-state (aside from defense spending, tax cuts and corporate subsidies) and letting the real industrial economy whither.
Meghan McCain says that this nation has always been great? Well, her father’s top campaign advisor called it “a nation of whiners”. Phil Gramm was the biggest cheerleader for deregulating the banks, which led directly to the 2008 crash.
Gee, and why would Americans whine??
1984. Truly the symbolic year that the Orwellian neoliberal war on Americans began. Why? To “lower our expectations” of the 60’s decade. Democracy is fine until it’s been activated. Then the hammer comes down. But other countries enjoy a high quality of life, no threats of revolt or overthrow, so why does this unnecessarily continue? It must just be greed. Exploiting the public sector for profit.
“To allow the market mechanism to be the sole director of the fate of human beings and their natural environment …would result in the demolition of society.” ~ Karl Polanyi, 1944
“More evidence that social control is behind market-driven health care comes from looking at its specific timing. Why did elite organizations like the CED begin advocating HMOs as the first step of their “market prescription,’’ in the early 1970's? That was when America’s corporate and government leaders re-evaluated the way they would have to govern in light of the social upheavals of the 1960’s.
Market-driven health care is part of a pattern of government and corporate policy initiatives over the last several decades which have one thing in common: they strengthen corporate power over people by lowering people’s expectations in life, and by reducing their economic, social, and emotional security.
These policies include corporate downsizing and the “temping” of jobs; the elimination of the “family wage,” so that now both parents have to work full-time and have less time with their children; drastic cuts in the social safety net of welfare and related assistance; the introduction of pension plans based on individualized investments that leave each older person to his or her own fate; and the use of high stakes tests in public elementary and secondary schools to subject children to the same stress and insecurity that their parents face on the job.
In the workplace, employers have adopted anti-worker tactics that had not been used since the early 1930s, most notably firing striking workers and hiring permanent replacements, as President Reagan did during the air traffic controllers’ strike. All these policies put people on the defensive and pressure them to worry more about personal survival than working together for social change.”
