McCain adviser (Former Sen. Gramm) talks of 'mental recession' (we've "become a nation of whiners")

[sabra]

Source: WashTimes

<snip>

In an interview with the Washington Times, Phil Gramm, a former Texas senator who is now vice chairman of UBS, the giant Swiss bank, said he expects Mr. McCain to inherit a sluggish economy if he wins the presidency, weighed down above all by the conviction of many Americans that economic conditions are the worst in two or three decades and that America is in decline.

"You've heard of mental depression; this is a mental recession," he said, noting that growth has held up at about 1 percent despite all the publicity over losing jobs to India, China, illegal immigration, housing and credit problems and record oil prices. "We may have a recession; we haven't had one yet."

"We have sort of become a nation of whiners," he said. "You just hear this constant whining, complaining about a loss of competitiveness, America in decline" despite a major export boom that is the primary reason that growth continues in the economy, he said.

...

Mr. Gramm said the constant drubbing of the media on the economy's problems is one reason people have lost confidence. Various surveys show that consumer confidence has fallen precipitously this year to the lowest levels in two to three decades, with most analysts attributing that to record high gasoline prices over $4 a gallon and big drops in the value of homes, which are consumers' biggest assets.

"Misery sells newspapers," Mr. Gramm said. "Thank God the economy is not as bad as you read in the newspaper every day."

Read more: http://www.washtimes.com/news/2008/jul/09/mccain-adviser-addresses-mental-recession/

[bdamomma]

1. FU Mr Gramm

[wryter2000]

31. Exactly

Someone take than man's millions away from him. Take his health insurance away from him, and give him a really bad case of the flu. He'd have no effing idea how to cope in the real world. I'd hear his whining here in Oaktown.

[TwilightGardener]

2. Please, please let all of America hear the attitude of the McCain campaign toward

the economic struggles of ordinary Americans. Pleeeeeaasee!!!!

[cliffordu]

12. I am sooooo there with you....I want EVERYONE to hear what these idiots

are saying.

:rofl:

[HughBeaumont]

16. McClown: Reaching the Working Class . . .

. . . by choosing the biggest corporate bastards (Meg Whitman, Chainsaw Carly Fiorina, Phil Gramm) for his staff!

Who's to blame for the biggest financial catastrophe of our time? There are plenty of culprits, but one candidate for lead perp is former Sen. Phil Gramm. Eight years ago, as part of a decades-long anti-regulatory crusade, Gramm pulled a sly legislative maneuver that greased the way to the multibillion-dollar subprime meltdown. Yet has Gramm been banished from the corridors of power? Reviled as the villain who bankrupted Middle America? Hardly. Now a well-paid executive at a Swiss bank, Gramm cochairs Sen. John McCain's presidential campaign and advises the Republican candidate on economic matters. He's been mentioned as a possible Treasury secretary should McCain win. That's right: A guy who helped screw up the global financial system could end up in charge of US economic policy. Talk about a market failure.

Gramm's long been a handmaiden to Big Finance. In the 1990s, as chairman of the Senate banking committee, he routinely turned down Securities and Exchange Commission chairman Arthur Levitt's requests for more money to police Wall Street; during this period, the sec's workload shot up 80 percent, but its staff grew only 20 percent. Gramm also opposed an sec rule that would have prohibited accounting firms from getting too close to the companies they audited—at one point, according to Levitt's memoir, he warned the sec chairman that if the commission adopted the rule, its funding would be cut. And in 1999, Gramm pushed through a historic banking deregulation bill that decimated Depression-era firewalls between commercial banks, investment banks, insurance companies, and securities firms—setting off a wave of merger mania.

But Gramm's most cunning coup on behalf of his friends in the financial services industry—friends who gave him millions over his 24-year congressional career—came on December 15, 2000. It was an especially tense time in Washington. Only two days earlier, the Supreme Court had issued its decision on Bush v. Gore. President Bill Clinton and the Republican-controlled Congress were locked in a budget showdown. It was the perfect moment for a wily senator to game the system. As Congress and the White House were hurriedly hammering out a $384-billion omnibus spending bill, Gramm slipped in a 262-page measure called the Commodity Futures Modernization Act. Written with the help of financial industry lobbyists and cosponsored by Senator Richard Lugar (R-Ind.), the chairman of the agriculture committee, the measure had been considered dead—even by Gramm. Few lawmakers had either the opportunity or inclination to read the version of the bill Gramm inserted. "Nobody in either chamber had any knowledge of what was going on or what was in it," says a congressional aide familiar with the bill's history.

http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/2008/07/foreclosure-phil.html

[TwilightGardener]

20. Wow--thank you. Invaluable info.

[Frances]

3. I hope Gramm keeps on with this kind of talk

It will just make independents mad enough to vote Dem

[ryanmuegge]

4. Imagine if one of Obama's economic clowns had said this. Imagine the reaction.

Who's really the elitist here?

[oasis]

5. Gramm's a former Enron enabler. (eom)

[Jim__]

6. I hope mcCain runs on continuing our current great economic trends.

Maybe he can make a commercial where Gramm tells us how stupid we all are for not recognizing the tremendous economic opportunities.

[Alcibiades]

7. Growth has not held up

The numbers for economic growth are as phony as the numbers for inflation and joblessness. If you adjusted the "growth" for the real rate of inflation, it would more than disappear.

[sinkingfeeling]

8. Sure, the economy is just great if you're a multi-millionaire. But for about 97% of the country,

it's dismal, you idiot.

[Binka]

9. The Whiners Should Tar & Feather This Asshole

Hey Fat BOY shut the fuck up. Let's open new Enron investigations on this fucker and his shitty wife.

[Karenina]

38. First flood his mailboxes

with pictures of Mussolini and Ceausescu, You KNOW the ones I mean. ;-) :hi:

[World Citizen]

10. you can NOT overestimate them

The level of arrogance is immeasurable.

There is NOTHING that they wont try now. Sooooooo desperate. The feel sure they can steal it again.

Don't believe the polls. Don't get comfortable. This is all out war. The entire planet is at stake.

[alcibiades_mystery]

11. There's a winning strategy!

I agree with the person above. If Obama had said anything of the sort, he'd be dead in the water, and bashed in the press continually for his "anti-white" racism (needless to say, if he restricted the comment to black Americans, he would be lauded in the press and by the many racists on this very board for having finally "had the courage" to "stand up to" the "special interests").

[Bill McBlueState]

26. Your prediction of the racial aspect is dead-on

Heaven forbid Obama say anything negative about Regular White Folks™ but people really cheer him on when he criticizes black people.

[DogPoundPup]

13. Foreclosure Gramm whining about getting caught for his part in creating this recession?

[cap]

17. exactly...

wait till the mortgage resets hit in August... there won't be whining. There will be howling.

except it won't be the subprimes, it will be the prime mortgages (the supposedly good ones).

More additions to Bushvilles:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eBIJH6--vsM

[Proud Liberal Dem]

14. PLEASE keep giving Obama talking points!!!

Why does it seem like the ONLY "problem" that Republicans ever see is how their actions (or the consequences thereof) are perceived by people and particularly how they are portrayed by the media (even though they are usually portrayed far more favorably than they would care to admit)? Why do they never seem to pause to reflect that maybe they might have made a mistake and/or that we may need to try something new?

[Imagevision]

15. Oh c'mon Americans, you always have... food stamps?

[LynnTheDem]

18. DAMN that treasonous US "media" (#53 for freedoms in the world!)

It's not that the economy is bad...it's the "MEDIA"!

It's not the TORTURE, RAPE & MURDER that's bad...it's the PHOTOS!

:eyes:

[whistle]

19. Republicans always blame the masses for their own mistakes

[DinahMoeHum]

21. Phil Gramm is a 2-legged PIG. Heck, he even LOOKS like a pig.

:evilfrown:

[boomerbust]

22. After taking my car

to the junkyard and opening up my empty frigde I knew it was all in my head. Thank you Mr. Gramm for the conformation.

[potone]

23. I always thought that he was one of the most stupid senators we ever had.

Do you remember how he was always talking about having flunked some grade in school three times as if that were something to brag about? He then went on to get a PhD in economics from somewhere or other--I can't imagine any reputable graduate program admitting him. Now he has a high position at a Swiss bank???!!! What's happened to the Swiss???!!!:wtf:

[Doctor_J]

24. There's a mental recession in the White House

and on McCain's campaign.

[Bill McBlueState]

25. Note that Gramm's view of depression is about as offensive as his view of the economy

Clearly to Phil Gramm, depression is just a "mental" problem that isn't to be taken as seriously as "real" problems.

[BearSquirrel2]

27. Oh the irony ...

Oh the irony coming from a man whose accent makes every word sound like whining.

[Vinca]

28. If it's all in my head, why can I go to my bill file and grab

a handful I'm finding it a struggle to pay? Just came from the grocery store. Milk $4.50 a gallon. The cat food is getting so expensive I'm thinking of serving it on crackers as pate. Then there was the beef. A couple of days ago in the same store I spotted a beautiful rib roast . . . for $40.00. Today they've got a $4.50 off sale sticker on it and still no takers. I paid my respects and headed for the canned beans. Phil Gramm can go to hell.

[sutz12]

29. Why do Repubs get to criticize the public like this?

Remember "Malaise" wherein Carter was crucified for basically telling the truth?

Hell, how about Obama saying people "cling to guns and religion"? Another basic truth that he was castigated for.

Whining?

What about all the RW Fundies whining about how Christians are being "persecuted?"

What about fat cats, like Gramm, continuously whining about high taxes, after theirs have been cut to the bone?

What about all the whining about spending tax dollars on abortion and sex ed, when my tax dollars go to support an illegal, immoral colonization attempt of a foreign country that I have never supported?

Sorry, Phil, old boy. It seems to me that the Repubs have cornered the market on whining, and I guess it is fitting that you whine about others' whining. If you want to know what they're doing, it's a safe bet they are up to exactly what they are accusing others of. They have scapegoatism and projection down to a fine art these days.

[Purveyor]

30. Thank you for posting this. Lets K&R this article to 'Greatest' status! eom

[truthisfreedom]

32. Why does Gramm hate Americans?

[mbperrin]

33. Are these results mental, then? UBS in the news today.

http://seekingalpha.com/article/84405-ubs-can-it-get-any-worse

UBS: Can It Get Any Worse?
by: Lockstep Investing posted on: July 10, 2008 | about stocks: UBS



In the movie Die Hard, the evil villain Hans Gruber says that after stealing $20m in bonds from a Japanese bank on Christmas Eve, he planned to store them in a Swiss bank account and retire “sitting on a beach collecting 20%”. Nowadays, he might not be quite as smug with that strategy.

After four consecutive quarters of losses and writedowns, the question outstanding is “Can it get any worse for UBS (UBS) and thus its share price?”

The question begins with recent rumors that HSBC (HBC) will call a bottom to the carnage and make a run at buying UBS. Yet why would HSBC want to buy a firm leaning over a cliff with their arms flailing?

There are host of current problems with UBS will need to contend with before it is attractive to any suitors…

(LOTS of "mental" stuff at the link)

[damntexdem]

34. Then there's the mental failure of mental mortgages.

Mental gasoline prices are way up.

And prices are way down on the mental stock market.

[aldo]

35. It seems he's the one whining that people are waking up to the bankster's scam

We should be sure to hang him and Carly Fiorini ("Americans have no god-given right to jobs") around McCain's neck. I can't believe McCain picked either of these filthy scum liars.

[Zorra]

36. If McCain is elected, this elitist fascist fool will be Treasury Secretary.

"Let them eat cake", he said.

[mbperrin]

37. Real cake or mental cake?

:hi:

[CountAllVotes]

39. Gramm needs to go to school

and he needs to take the subject called ARITHMETIC and learn it this time around if at all possible.

:dem:

[skoalyman]

40. noting that growth has held up at about 1 percent

someone should tell em that growth is probably cancer how else would we have growth we've been neutered out of all the good jobs

[ryanmuegge]

41. I know we (the Democrats) don't have strategists, consultants, or politicians interested in winning

elections, but if we did, I'd have Obama, the Democratic pundits on cable news, and anybody else mention this every single day remaining in this campaign. I'd try to make sure that every American (many people don't pay attention to the news, so it would take a lot of repetition) knew about this damning statement on what the public sees as the most important issue of the cycle.

But, again, our politicians aren't really trying to win.