Alternet: The US economic meltdown continues - Fed Up: The Bush-Paulson Financial Reform Plan Is a Bogus Scheme - by Danny Schechter

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The US economic meltdown continues - Fed Up: The Bush-Paulson Financial Reform Plan Is a Bogus Scheme - by Danny Schechter

President Bush (remember him?) has finally heard those of us who have been railing for financial reform, and putting Wall Street under what the Jamaicans once called "Heavy Manners," a set of rules and regulations aimed at trying to stabilize the volatile markets and curb avaricious banks who have managed in less than a decade to bring a house of cards down upon themselves and the rest the world. It is just possible that Bush's successor -- Obama or Clinton -- will see through this charade, although Hillary has already proposed a Blue Ribbon type commission with former Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan and others whose policies led to the crisis. (Her campaign manager Maggie Williams has now been linked to a defunct mortgage company making subprime loans.) John McCain (Grandpa Munster) has not only admitted he knows nothing about economics, but has advisers whose free market theology seems to be to the right of Paulson and the Fed's Ben Bernanke who some conservatives fear are already meddling too much in the economy. His key adviser, former Texas Senator Phil Gramm, a Democrat-turned-Republican shilled for predatory lenders for years, even denouncing a housing activist as a "terrorist." Obama also has a sub-prime link through his Finance Chairman Penny Pritzger who ran a Chicago bank that imploded and owes the government and depositors hundreds of millions.

Mr. Bush's legacy is unambiguously dismal. He is leaving the economy in worse shape than he found it, with an extra $4-trillion added to the national debt for good measure. He presided over a vast expansion, and abuse, of the powers of his office. The legacy of Guantanamo, torture and wiretaps will not soon be forgotten. The war on terror has had few tangible successes and many apparent failures while the war in Iraq an endless disaster. Unfortunately, the Land of the Brave is turning into the Land of the Poor and the Confused.