Economic Meltdown: John McCain and the "Old Boy's Network"

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Economic Meltdown: John McCain and the "Old Boy's Network"

By Joel Wendland

Labor criticized the Bush administration for moving only to shore up Wall Street and to socialize the costs of saving banks who had made poor business decisions, while ignoring the plight of middle-class Americans.

Through its affiliate Working America as well as its regular e-mail list of members and supporters, the AFL-CIO sent out an e-action item called "Fix the Real Economy Now." The e-mail asked supporters to demand of Congress a moratorium on home foreclosures, expanded unemployment benefits, fiscal relief for states and more funding for anti-poverty programs, along with new investments in infrastructure development.

"What about ordinary Americans who are already hurting and going to hurt more?", Sweeney wondered. "With record joblessness, health care in crisis, crumbling infrastructure and lost homes, we must be every bit as determined to not allow Main Street to fail as we are to save Wall Street and our foreign central bank creditors."

Their make-shift response to the collapsing financial market showed the flaws in the Republican Party's approach to the market, Sweeney contended. "The Republicans have no economic strategy; they’re scrambling to put out fires their policies created and doing so with taxpayer money."

For his part, Republican presidential candidate John McCain emphasized his belief in deregulation and strongly criticized government intervention – until this week when he dramatically switched his position and called for a commission to find out what happened in the financial markets. Even still, McCain repeated to a Jacksonville, Florida audience this week that he thinks the "fundamentals of the economy are strong."

At a campaign stop in Nevada this week, Barack Obama chastised McCain for his refusal to take the economic crisis seriously and for his support for the economic policies that caused the financial meltdown. Obama said that the causes of the financial crisis are linked to the problems with Washington, which John McCain represents: "CEO's got greedy and Washington lobbyists got their way."

Obama ridiculed McCain's claim that he would take on special interests, or as McCain himself put it, "the old boy's network." Obama replied, "In the McCain campaign that's called a staff meeting." By some estimates, 177 lobbyists work for the McCain campaign in some capacity.

http://www.politicalaffairs.net/article/articleview/7425/

Articles and Resources on the Economic Crisis

Author: CPUSA
First published 09/19/2008 16:43

The week of September 15, 2008 has been a dramatic and unprecedented period in the world of high finance. The economic crisis is not over despite what some pundits and politicians have claimed. A series of government interventions have changed the map of banking and finance.

So what does it all mean? What will be impact of the Wall Street bankruptcies, bailouts and blunders on working people in this country and worldwide? What's the solution to the crisis?

Perhaps only time will tell the full extent of the impact. Needless to say, this weeks developments don't bode well for the future. Here are some thoughts from contributors to the Peoples Weekly World and Political Affairs and leaders of the Communist Party on the current economic crisis, the policies that got us to this point and the historical precedents.

We will update this resource list in the days and weeks to come, as the full scope of the crisis is better known.

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Week of Sept. 15:

EDITORIAL: Bailout Main Street
Sept. 19, 2008

Economic Meltdown
By Joel Wendland:
Sept. 19, 2008

Wall Street meltdown wallops Main Street
By Phil Cadman
Sept. 19, 2008

Things Fall Apart: Wall Street and the Crisis of US Imperialism
By Joe Sims and Joel Wendland
Sept. 19 2008

http://www.cpusa.org/article/articleview/982/1/3/