A 2500-page bill that some have astutely called "The Lawyers’ and Lobbyists’ Full Employment Act" passed the Senate by the bare majority needed (to make the filibuster benchmark) 60-39. The trio of liberal New England Republicans (Scott Brown (MA) and the Maine senators), with only one dissenting Democrat, liberal Russ Feingold (WI) (protesting it didn't go far enough), helped pass the convoluted measure. Similarly, only 3 Republicans voted for the House version of the measure.
There are certain things I like about the bill--in particular, greater transparency of derivatives, a streamlining of consumer finance regulations, and compartmentalization of federal-insured/subsidized operations versus risk-based investments.
But I'm far from convinced, for example, that a whole new layer of bureaucracy will be inherently more competent than the status quo, I'm worried about the unnecessary, excessive cost of the inherently unmanageable regulatory conglomerate and the likely suppression of financial innovation and increased cost and global uncompetitiveness of financial services to businesses and consumers, moral hazards and the law of unintended consequences, and I think that the best way to deal with "too big to fail" is to take away the punch bowl, not a misguided attempt to institutionalize a bailout process.
Moreover, this really doesn't address what culminated in the economic tsunami, in particular, the easy money policy of the Federal Reserve and government political pressure on mortgage lenders, including through the industry-dominant GSE's, with implicit government backing, to write or guaranatee risky loans, often under gimmick terms.
A more focused, less costly overhaul that, among other things, would fully privatize the GSE's and make the Federal Reserve more transparent and focused on its core mission instead of increasing its span of control, and empowers banks with a more prudent, limited involvement in an already overregulated market sector would have been something I could have endorsed--not Dodd/Frank-enstein.
Rove's Biggest Mistake? My Take
There are a few talented regular contributors I pay attention to on Fox News Channel: Charles Krauthammer, Andrew Napolitano, John Stossel, Newt Gingrich, and Karl Rove. (You thought I was going to say Sarah Palin, Shep Smith, Sean Hannity, and Ann Coulter? PLEASE...) I would love to be at the first group's lunch table, especially if they invited George Will as a guest.
Karl Rove argues that his biggest mistake was not responding quickly enough to the hypocritical Democrats whom flip-flopped on the questionable intelligence on Saddam Hussein and Iraq, accusing Bush of "lying" to the country about what they themselves initially believed in. Well, there's a lot to be said about not letting yourself be defined by your competition, and the Democrats have notoriously deployed a "quick response" strategy since the 1992 election. He suggests that the reason for the failure to respond was essentially a reluctance to discuss spilled milk and a desire to move on.
But his biggest mistake? Well, I can think of a few that are probably more compelling: Rove should have realized how the slow public response to Katrina badly undercut Bush's credibility. After Bush's criticism of Clinton's nation building in the former Yugoslavia, Bush ends up nation building in politically divisive Iraq. Bush introduced some of the biggest government spending sprees in years, including a new Medicare benefit, poorly financed, nearly doubling the nation's deficit. Bush did not fully engage with bipartisan leadership in Congress and spent much of his final two years in office running out the clock. Bush failed to respond with a change in strategy in Iraq as casualties soared. He nominated cronies as the Attorney General and to the Supreme Court.
Political Cartoon
Glenn McCoy doesn't address other occupations doing well under Obama: speechwriters, movers, repo men, resume distribution services, debt consolidators, T-bill salesmen, regulators, government printers, ...
Quote of the Day
You can never plan the future by the past
Edmund Burke
Musical Interlude: Chart Hits of 1995
Vanessa Williams, "Color of the Wind"
Bon Jovi, "Always"
Bryan Adams, "Have You Ever Really Loved a Woman"
Sheryl Crow, "All I Wanna Do"
Gloria Estefan, "Turn the Beat Around"
