Check out this article at Elsevier ScienceDirect:

"The Moose of the Apocalypse: Andrej Bitov's ‘Čelovek v Pejzaže’"

By: Priscilla Meyer

Abstract

Andrei Bitov's ‘Man in Landscape’ uses two motifs from Revelation to trace the narrator's relationship to his divine origin: reptilian beasts and the interplay of light and dark. The apocalyptic animals, coupled with the hero's passages from light into darkness and from darkness into light, explicate the narrator's pilgrim's progress from spiritual blindness to a life-giving epiphany. The narrator is led through two days of drunken wanderings by a painter who projects his own frailties onto God; he finally recognizes his blasphemy and flees the artist's apartment, later, like John of Patmos, to provide a record of his revelation....

...And there is a MOOSE involved.

========================================================================

Hmmm...might be worth a second look given the "apocalyptic" collapse of our banking system, right after Gov. Palin's arrival on the national scene;-)

http://tinyurl.com/4gvyl8

"No one knows what to do...."

Isn't that why we elected these idiots??? To FIGURE OUT what to do!!!!

If Reid doesn't know what to do, then what makes him think he knows who to blame???? Like yesterday, when it was entirely McCain and the Republicans fault.

If they don't know what to do to fix it, then how can they know who to blame?

They've been in control for the last two years, are we to understand that they've been CLUELESS the entire time??

If congress doesn't know what to do. Why don't we replace them with someone that does. That is the reason we are in the trouble we're in now. No oversight, bedfellows with big business, crime and high places. America is going to the dogs.

I'm not sure who is dumber - Dingy Harry or Stretch Pelosi. What a waste of oxygen!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

niccolo: I'll bet that you believe Harry Potter is a real person also. Apacalyptic in fantasy land but a needed correction in the real world.

Leadership!

niccolo, that has got to be the dumbest thing I've read. Are you seriously equating Palin's arrival on the national level with something that's been going on for years? Please.....

After TWO years controlling both houses of Congress.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, "No one knows what to do."

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, "We're not to blame."

The Dems know how to hold pointless witch-hunt hearings, but not how to lead.

Don't Do Anything, Senator! You are responsible for this mess and any action by you will only exacerbate the situation!

OMG First Polosi, House Majority Leader (D) comes up with the Dems new campaign slogan.."Hey Don't Blame Us," and now Reid, Senate Majority Leader (D) adds to it "No One Know What To Do." I, with some reluctance, lean McCain, but even I am feeling for Obama...Can't you keep your people in line....how do you expect us to have confidence in you as a leader....I am waiting for Obama's to say "Hey, It's Not My Job."

McCain tried to stop the madness of Fannie Mae / Freddie Mac back in 2005 and the Dems stopped it.

Obama gets tons of cash from the assholes who run it so they don't keep an eye on their shenanigans.

Obama as POTUS is a depression in the making.

McCain is a proven leader and will give the confidence and courage to reform the regulation of the housing loan industry.

Obama will do nothing.

I know what to do. Don't let McPalin near the White house or we are in for the worse..

McCAIN SAYS!!

"I know how to fix it. I know how to fix the corruption," he said of the nation's economic problems during an appearance Tuesday on NBC's "Today" show. "I've been fighting it the whole time I've been in Congress."

Ya, sure he has been fighting it all along...

DID HE FORGET HE ONE OF THE DIRTIEST AND CORRUPT SENATORS OF ALL TIME, during the KEATING FIVE scandal in 1989???

Google the KEATING FIVE "My Friends."

and these are the same people who are running around telling everyone Palin has no experiance in how Washington works

at this point i'd say that her biggiest asset

Don't forget Presidential candidate Barack Obama, "It's above my pay grade."

Judgment to Lead? NO.

As head of the comerce comitee. McCain took all regulations off.

Yes, by all means, let's keep Pelosi, Reid, and the rest of the do-nothing Congress in charge of all of our futures....

"No one knows what to do..."

What a thing for a Senate Majority LEADER to be saying...............

Ahhhh.....

Now I know why the Congress has a 9% approval rating.

A 5th grader would know better about what to do than Harry Reid.

We need change in the Congress!!!!!

"No one knows what to do...." -- Harry 'dingy' Reid,

"This was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal." -- Lord Barack Obama.

Harry said the democrats are clueless. So why isn't the Lord Obama the most merciful messiah helping out here? Surely fixing the economy is a lot easier than healing the planet! Please Lord Obama, please use your godly zap ray power to fix the economy.

this is entirely the republicans faults,

mccain is for more deregulation no matter what hes saying today he has always been for deregulation (which is what got us in this place)

the bush cheney philosophy has also played a huge roll in how we got here

phil gramm (mccains friend and long time economic advisor) was the one who snuck this deregulation into a bill that allowed thsi sub prime mess.

so yes absolutely this falls ot the administration and what htey have allowed to go on for the last 8 years. We had a surplus and no debt, and now under bush he has bankrupt this country and we are in a free fall.

dont be fooled about that, but no one knows how far this goes... some people said with fannie and freddie that that was the bottom, but as we are seeing, we now have a new bottom

no one can give a definitive answer about what to do, so far it seems like obama has a bigger grasp on the things that we need to do to possibly stop this free fall, and mccain just seems to be going with whatever sounds politically nice but has no real suggestions other then he will clean it up.

Big government was the cause of this problem. Obama wants to make big government even bigger. A fool's answer!!

Palin has no experience

dont act like she does, she is the most unqualified vp candidate in the history of vp candidates...

we all know that mccain took a gamble and did not vet her, and his political stunt is not looking so good so far.

At LAST! An honest statement from Sen. Reid:

"This is WAY over MY pay grade! I'm in over my fu**ing head on this one, and I'm going to...going to...huh? I don't have a CLUE what the f**k I'm going to do. Maybe Nancy Pelosi will buy a clue FOR me. Yeah! That'd work!"

the republicans constantly talk about smaller government... wonder what happened under bush cheney?

and if obamas a fool for giving an answer then whats mccain for giving no answer?

a moron?

congress has 2 more democratic votes than the republicans, bush still vetos everything sent his way, the republicans have been in charge for the last 6 years and have lost slight power in the last year

you cant blame this congress for everything they have done over the last 6 years

you cant call iraq a success with the surge you just cant suddenly change your mind and erase the last 6 years with one good news story

im sorry republicans you are failures

and right now YOU DID THIS TO US

Check out this article at Elsevier ScienceDirect:

"The Moose of the Apocalypse: Andrej Bitov's ‘Čelovek v Pejzaže’"

By: Priscilla Meyer

Abstract

Andrei Bitov's ‘Man in Landscape’ uses two motifs from Revelation to trace the narrator's relationship to his divine origin: reptilian beasts and the interplay of light and dark. The apocalyptic animals, coupled with the hero's passages from light into darkness and from darkness into light, explicate the narrator's pilgrim's progress from spiritual blindness to a life-giving epiphany. The narrator is led through two days of drunken wanderings by a painter who projects his own frailties onto God; he finally recognizes his blasphemy and flees the artist's apartment, later, like John of Patmos, to provide a record of his revelation....

...And there is a MOOSE involved.
--------------------

Yes and Sarah Palin kill Mooses and eats them too. She is the murderer in this story.

mccain palin bush cheney hte most ethical president and vp candidates ever

love all the terrible scandals palin is involved in... too bad mccain didnt vet her

hsi vp pick shows what kind of leader he will be and just how far this man has fallen

his campaign is nothing but lies and dishonesty

straight talk?

yea right

thanks but no thanks

"Many of the problems we're having today, particularly the problems with AIG., the failures on Wall Street, the mortgage industry, actually go back not to greed in the private market but political greed," Demint said.

Um, that's not what McCain says. He says not only is greed at fault (and was talking about good ol' fashioned private sector greed for money), but he's going to get rid of greed - seriously.

But then why would anyone listen to what McCain has to say anymore.

How do you know when McCain is contradicting himself?

His lips are moving.

obama is one of the largest recipients of campaign donations from fannie mae/mac and we wonder why no oversight.
this do nothing congress does not know what to do? i do, lets show them the door in november.

Bhrandon - well, the Republicans talk about a lot of stuff, but I sure can't think of any part of government that actually took concrete steps to make any smaller.

Reagan talked about it for a while, but he never followed through.

Hey Bhrandon , two years ago John McCain warned that Freddie and Fannie would fail. The democrats ignored him. The question is why did they ignore him? Well, look at who is in the pockets of these institutions and you will find many democrats with Chris Dodd, and Obama, number 1 and 2.

John McCain now suggest that an investigation take place - I bet democrats will fight this because many democrats will go to jail.

Obama got a sweetheart deal from his mortgage company and looked the other way while Rome was burning. Obama to money from all the principles now in trouble or who have failed - again, he looked the other way.

Obama - the selling of America!

Norman - "...two years ago John McCain warned that Freddie and Fannie would fail."

Huh, I never saw that before. Can you post the quote from McCain?

Harry, the best thing you can do is get government out of the way.

"Don't forget Presidential candidate Barack Obama, "It's above my pay grade."
Judgment to Lead? NO."

Hey stupid republican idiot, don't go miquoting Obama. That was in reply to a question about abortion, and what he meant was that the decision belongs to God and the mother, not to Republican Big Brother Government.

This forum is about the economy. Obama knows how to lead. If he had been our president 8 years ago, we wouldn't have borrowed $1 Trillion from the Chinese to fighting the War of Bush's ego in Iraq, our national debt would be $1 Trillion lower, and the American dollar would not be devalued in the world currency market as it is today. Not to mention, Al Queda would have been chased the gates of Afghanistan and killed, and 4,176 American soldiers would be alive today.

Take your republican stupidity and stick it up your a** because American can not afford any more idiots like you, Bush, Cheyney, McWarDebt, and Palin bringing collossal destruction upon us.

People need to think about: Do I really want to elect a President who says he really does not understand economics at this time? mccain/palin would be a complete disaster. Obama/Biden 2008!!!

Harry: First take off your party loyalty hat, go back and see where it worked as it was suppose to have worked and then where it started to loose money. There is a real good chance that some politician such as yourself stepped in to "make things better" (better known as vote pandering)and screwed the pooch (the pooches are we the tax payers)

committee on finance/banking and currency chair Max Baucus ( DEMOCRAT) ranking member Chuck Grassley (DEMOCRAT). Committee on financial services Barney Frank (DEMOCRAT)

you do the math.

McCain knew what to do in 2005..... but you know who was busy getting their pockets lined and defeated it.

READ IT ALL.

http://hotair.com/archives/2008/09/17/mccains-attempt-to-fix-fannie-mae-freddie-mac-in-2005/

CC

Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi prove that, if you're from a 'safe' district or state, you can be elected enough to rise through the ranks of DC power -- even if you're completely incompetent!

Washington is broke and the shallow one doesn't offer a clue about how to fix it!

Hey Paul, its in the congressional record. Look it up for yourself.

Let's talk to Barney Frank and Chris Dodd, since it is he and Dodd who chair the committees that have regulatory oversight for the companies getting the bailouts. Clinton pushed through the legislation that allowed depository institutions to also become brokerage institutions (Glass Spiegel act I think) something that was outlawed since the depression. The republicans don't get a free pass on this one either, but McCain warned about this exact situation in 2005, he is on the record.

We all know what the first thing to do
Reid must step down.

Your hard-earned tax dollars at work, America!!!!

"No one knows what to do..."

But believe they know who to blame....

I simply cannot believe that I have been a member of this party of idiots for 30 years, and actually cheered in relief when they won both houses of Congress two years ago.

Not this time.......................

This is why I think reagan was the most overrated president in history. He's the guy that de-regulated all these banks. He's the guy that said we don't need to make auto makers increase their fuel economy because gas prices came down at the time. What we really don't need now is a bush-3, and that is what mccain offers. Obama/Biden 2008!!!

Hey Davis,
In response to your screed concerning John McCain and the Keating Five fiasco, let me offer a little info for you. At one time, I too, thought McCain was tied up with that mess. Well, I recently saw an interview with Robert Bennett, Bill Clinton's lawyer and a Democrat, if you remember. Well, he was the investigator in charge of the Keating investigation that went on for well over a year and he said that he came to the conclusion that John McCain is one of the most HONEST and DECENT politicians he has ever met and, that McCain was innocent of ANY misconduct in the Keating investigation. He presented this evidence to the Senate committee (controlled by the Dems who were in the majority) and they totally ignored him and included him in their sanctions because the other four Senators were Democrats and they just could not have all the people sanctioned only Democrats and they had to have a Republican included in order to not have the Dems take all the heat. So Davis, you have the right to your opinion, but you should use a little less emotion and try a more reasoned approach.

hey Paul, I did the work for you..

Federal Housing Enterprise Regulatory Reform Act of 2005

Bill Summary

1/26/2005--Introduced. Federal Housing Enterprise Regulatory Reform Act of 2005 - Amends the Federal Housing Enterprises Financial Safety and Soundness Act of 1992 to establish: (1) in lieu of the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight of the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), an independent Federal Housing Enterprise Regulatory Agency which shall have authority over the Federal Home Loan Bank Finance Corporation, the Federal Home Loan Banks, the Federal National Mortgage Association (Fannie Mae), and the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation (Freddie Mac); and (2) the Federal Housing Enterprise Board. Sets forth operating, administrative, and regulatory provisions of the Agency, including provisions respecting: (1) assessment authority; (2) authority to limit nonmission-related assets; (3) minimum and critical capital levels; (4) risk-based capital test; (5) capital classifications and undercapitalized enterprises; (6) enforcement actions and penalties; (7) golden parachutes; and (8) reporting. Amends the Federal Home Loan Bank Act to establish the Federal Home Loan Bank Finance Corporation. Transfers the functions of the Office of Finance of the Federal Home Loan Banks to such Corporation. Excludes the Federal Home Loan Banks from certain securities reporting requirements. Abolishes the Federal Housing Finance Board.

Palin will speak in tongues and will save the day. Thank heavens her briliance has arrived just in time to save us all.
Republicans have controlled Congress through Bill Clinton's years (1990's) to 2006 when the Democrats got a slim majority in the House and one vote in the Senate.
John McCain has been in Congress 26 years and served on the Commerce Committee, but cannot remember what it does.
During this period, Republicans have had the deregulated finances they still tout and they have destroyed our economy.
How can any intelligent working person vote for them?

It started with "Community organizers" like obama playing the race card to force loans to unqualified black people.

Yep...no one in Congress knows what to do, nor has known what to do...

OOPS, except for the "Kook"...

http://www.house.gov/paul/congrec/congrec2003/cr091003.htm

Keep burying your heads in the sand folks and toe your pathetic party lines...

In the meantime, we'll keep making money.

Good Luck.

mccain warned that this would happen and yes it is part of the congressional record.

HON. RON PAUL OF TEXAS
IN THE HOUSE FINANCIAL SERVICES COMMITTEE
September 10, 2003

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac Subsidies Distort the Housing Market

Mr. Chairman, thank you for holding this hearing on the Treasury Department’s views regarding government sponsored enterprises (GSEs). I would also like to thank Secretaries Snow and Martinez for taking time out of their busy schedules to appear before the committee.

I hope this committee spends some time examining the special privileges provided to GSEs by the federal government. According to the Congressional Budget Office, the housing-related GSEs received 13.6 billion worth of indirect federal subsidies in fiscal year 2000 alone. Today, I will introduce the Free Housing Market Enhancement Act, which removes government subsidies from the Federal National Mortgage Association (Fannie Mae), the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation (Freddie Mac), and the National Home Loan Bank Board.

One of the major government privileges granted to GSEs is a line of credit with the United States Treasury. According to some estimates, the line of credit may be worth over $2 billion dollars. This explicit promise by the Treasury to bail out GSEs in times of economic difficulty helps the GSEs attract investors who are willing to settle for lower yields than they would demand in the absence of the subsidy. Thus, the line of credit distorts the allocation of capital. More importantly, the line of credit is a promise on behalf of the government to engage in a huge unconstitutional and immoral income transfer from working Americans to holders of GSE debt.

The Free Housing Market Enhancement Act also repeals the explicit grant of legal authority given to the Federal Reserve to purchase GSE debt. GSEs are the only institutions besides the United States Treasury granted explicit statutory authority to monetize their debt through the Federal Reserve. This provision gives the GSEs a source of liquidity unavailable to their competitors.

The connection between the GSEs and the government helps isolate the GSE management from market discipline. This isolation from market discipline is the root cause of the recent reports of mismanagement occurring at Fannie and Freddie. After all, if Fannie and Freddie were not underwritten by the federal government, investors would demand Fannie and Freddie provide assurance that they follow accepted management and accounting practices.

Ironically, by transferring the risk of a widespread mortgage default, the government increases the likelihood of a painful crash in the housing market. This is because the special privileges granted to Fannie and Freddie have distorted the housing market by allowing them to attract capital they could not attract under pure market conditions. As a result, capital is diverted from its most productive use into housing. This reduces the efficacy of the entire market and thus reduces the standard of living of all Americans.

Despite the long-term damage to the economy inflicted by the government’s interference in the housing market, the government’s policy of diverting capital to other uses creates a short-term boom in housing. Like all artificially-created bubbles, the boom in housing prices cannot last forever. When housing prices fall, homeowners will experience difficulty as their equity is wiped out. Furthermore, the holders of the mortgage debt will also have a loss. These losses will be greater than they would have otherwise been had government policy not actively encouraged over-investment in housing.

Perhaps the Federal Reserve can stave off the day of reckoning by purchasing GSE debt and pumping liquidity into the housing market, but this cannot hold off the inevitable drop in the housing market forever. In fact, postponing the necessary, but painful market corrections will only deepen the inevitable fall. The more people invested in the market, the greater the effects across the economy when the bubble bursts.

No less an authority than Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan has expressed concern that government subsidies provided to GSEs make investors underestimate the risk of investing in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

Mr. Chairman, I would like to once again thank the Financial Services Committee for holding this hearing. I would also like to thank Secretaries Snow and Martinez for their presence here today. I hope today’s hearing sheds light on how special privileges granted to GSEs distort the housing market and endanger American taxpayers. Congress should act to remove taxpayer support from the housing GSEs before the bubble bursts and taxpayers are once again forced to bail out investors who were misled by foolish government interference in the market. I therefore hope this committee will soon stand up for American taxpayers and investors by acting on my Free Housing Market Enhancement Act.

Spoken like a true Democrat.

Reid just shrugs his shoulders and says "we have no ideas". Seems the Dems are only good at complaining and pointing fingers.

McCain will fix it!!!!

Obama will fix it!!!!

ROFLMAO.

Good Luck Sheep!

This is not the Republican's fault, at least not wholly. Twice, in 2003 and 2005, the Republicans tried to institute better oversight. Even the NYT thought the President's idea in 2003 was a good idea, since accounting scandals had been going on for years and no one in Congress (who had oversight) was doing anything about it. Both times, it never got out of committee in the Senate, thanks to Chris Dodd and the lobbying efforts of Fannie and Freddie. This was predicted years ago by, you guessed it, John McCain. This subprime mess was caused by enacting legislation to force lenders to expand home ownership into the lower income areas - a noble goal. It had the affect of rapidly raising home prices, pricing lower income homeowners out. The only way to keep up with the directive was to drastically expand the subprime loans in order to qualify more homeowners. These guys took it way too far, with no-doc and interest only loans. It made tons of money short term, but they didn't say no to those they knew wouldn't be able to pay.

Overall, this falls on the Democrats almost exclusively, as they blocked all efforts to rein in the two largest mortgage underwriters as a matter of politics, not governance. IF you want to blame it on Presidents, blame it on Bill Clinton, he pushed for the relaxed rules and he signed the dereg bill you all try to pin on GWB and McCain.

norman thank you for taking the time to post the record that PROVES that mccain warned that this would happen.

clifton | Sep 17, 2008 2:54:13 PM

Clifton, you are another mindless Obama sheep bleating "Hope and Change" and offering only insults and obscenity instead of intelligence. Grow up, boy--and put away the beer muscles.

Obama's gutless response to the abortion question--as a candidate who wants to appoint the Justices who will decide all abortion issues in America--shows just how devoid of leadership Obama is--as well as Reid and Pelosi. Obama’s paygrade answer was just one more “Present” vote added to the mountain he cast in the Illinois senate.

McCain will find it almost impossible to live up to his vow of no earmarks, gridlock would result if Congress refused to go along with such an executive branch power grab.

And that’s what members of McCain’s own party are saying.

“I don’t think it’s the right approach,” said Rep. Ralph Regula, an Ohio Republican who has spent three decades on the House Appropriations Committee. “I haven’t done an earmark I wouldn’t be happy to have spread all over the front pages of the paper.”

Rep. C.W. Bill Young (R-Fla.), a former Appropriations Committee chairman, warns that both parties in Congress would protect their power against a no-earmark policy.

“The Constitution is very specific and very clear about who appropriates money,” Young said. “Not all earmarks are pork-barrel spending.”

McCain has billed himself and his running mate as mavericks who will stand up to foolish spending.

Hey, Mister Community Organizer:

Can't you offer anything positive to do?
I thought not!

So, continue puffing hot air and making personal attacks. By all means, avoid being pinned down on any issue. Blame Martians or someone else for the problems. And above all, keep looking down your nose at your followers.

Posted by

The Democratic idiots in Congress can't figure this out, but we're supposed to elect Obama so the Democrats can have control of Congress and the White House???

Yeah, right......................

This congress is a disaster but the worst is being hidden because the media is way too busy misrepresenting republican candidates and editing their true statements.

Here is some straight talk...

Democratic congress (see Barney Frank video) would not permit any look at Fannie/Freddie - in response to Bush 2003 request and McCain 2005 for oversight to determine all the looming problems.

Obama is one of the top 3 recipients of money from Fannie/Freddie.

Democrats lead all the committees that would be looking at the banks and credits rules.

Democrats were executives for Fannie/Freddie and accumulated 100's of millions of dollars while doing it in the past dozen years.

Now, why do you think old do nothing Harry Reid doesn't know what to do?

If you are supporting the idea that Democrats are not the problem with this credit/banking problem, you are part of the problem too. You and your children will be he beneficiaries of continuing to support them and let them take your hard earned cash.

Hey Norman! Isn't your candidate the guy who keeps whining about CEOs getting a ton of cash while screwing the little people? Maybe Obambi could start by getting tough with these CEOs, eh? Heres a little information for you. By conservative estimates, Mudd, 49, and Syron, 64, will leave with an additional $7.3 million and $6.3 million, respectively, as part of a severance package, according to an analysis by Paul Hodgson at the Corporate Library. Mudd is another genius from General Electric, the company that owns NBC. Syron claims that he received enormous pressure from an un-named lawmaker pushing Freddie to take on the bad loans. So the Times reports that as Syron and others sat in a conference room reviewing the memo, Syron "refused to consider possibilities for reducing Freddie Mac's risks. He said we couldn't afford to say no to anyone." I wonder who in Congress was pressuring him to take bad loans?

Per the article: R-SC DeMint says that AIG is in trouble because of bad mortgages that originated with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. So a Republican has stated the problem and we're supposed to vote for McCain who has lobbyist in his campaign as advisors for these institutions? To add insult to injury, the McCain camp hired uber Washington lobbyist, William Timmons to run his transition team to the White House should he get elected. This lobbyist so close to McCain has registered to work on bills that deal with the regulations of troubled mortgage lenders Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, a bill to provide farm subsidies and bills that regulate domestic oil-drilling. How is McCain going to serve two masters?

Okay, I read the link.

My thoughts are first, its an exaggeration to say McCain predicted the collapse of Freddie/Fannie, and second, we see another reference to golden parachutes... which takes us down an interesting avenue.

The bill which McCain co-sponsored would have set up yet another governmental organization to oversee Fannie and Freddie, right? I mean, that's basically all it does.

It doesn't do anything about predatory lending practices. Basically what McCain was arguing against was cooking the books by Fannie/Freddie executives, in order to qualify for bonuses - which don't get me wrong, certainly is a valid concern.

And we see how this body would oversee accounting as well as bonuses and pensions - golden parachutes are called out.

Now this week when McCain says he'll eliminate golden parachutes throughout the financial sector, is he talking about a similar governmental expansion, to oversee fully non-governmental corporations, and that seemingly can over-rule the private corporate boards?

Reid can start be returning his pay.

"No one is sure what to do"

Charge! Blindly in to the night......

Hey nevada, you are welcome, the truth is everywhere! If democrats did real research and ignore the biased liberal media they will be stunned at what they find and how they have been misled.

The general co-chairman of John McCain’s presidential campaign, former Sen. Phil Gramm (R-Texas), led the charge in 1999 to repeal a Depression-era banking regulation law that Democrat Barack Obama claimed on Thursday contributed significantly to today’s economic turmoil.

“A regulatory structure set up for banks in the 1930s needed to change because the nature of business had changed,” the Illinois senator running for president said in a New York economic speech. “But by the time [it] was repealed in 1999, the $300 million lobbying effort that drove deregulation was more about facilitating mergers than creating an efficient regulatory framework.”

Gramm’s role in the swift and dramatic recent restructuring of the nation’s investment houses and practices didn’t stop there.

A year after the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act repealed the old regulations, Swiss Bank UBS gobbled up brokerage house Paine Weber. Two years later, Gramm settled in as a vice chairman of UBS’s new investment banking arm.

Later, he became a major player in its government affairs operation. According to federal lobbying disclosure records, Gramm lobbied Congress, the Federal Reserve and the Treasury Department about banking and mortgage issues in 2005 and 2006.

During those years, the mortgage industry pressed Congress to roll back strong state rules that sought to stem the rise of predatory tactics used by lenders and brokers to place homeowners in high-cost mortgages.

For his work, Gramm and two other lobbyists collected $750,000 in fees from UBS’s American subsidiary. In the past year, UBS has written down more than $18 billion in exposure to subprime loans and other risky securities and is considering cutting as many as 8,000 jobs.

Gramm did not respond to an e-mail and was unavailable for comment, according to a UBS spokesman. The bank has no official position on the subprime crisis, the spokesman said, but is a member of the Financial Services Roundtable and other industry groups that are actively lobbying Congress on the issue.

Now, some housing experts and economists see Gramm’s thinking in the recent housing proposal from McCain, the Republican Party’s presumed presidential nominee. Gramm is often a surrogate for the Arizona senator, particularly in meetings focused on the economy. And McCain has hinted he’d consider the former Texas senator for Treasury secretary in a McCain administration.

McCain delivered an economic speech Tuesday that had Gramm's input, but it was written by domestic policy adviser Douglas Holtz-Eakin.

“Sen. Gramm was one of dozens of folks whom Sen. McCain has consulted on the housing issue, including Carly Fiorina and Meg Whitman from eBay," said McCain campaign spokesman Brian Rogers. "They've been friends for years, and he values Sen. Gramm's advice."

In the speech, McCain rejected the type of aggressive government intervention in the economic meltdown that has been embraced by his Democratic opponents — and even some Bush advisers.

“I have always been committed to the principle that it is not the duty of government to bail out and reward those who act irresponsibly, whether they are big banks or small borrowers,” McCain said. “Government assistance to the banking system should be based solely on preventing systemic risk that would endanger the entire financial system and the economy.”

What about that Ron Paul guy? He seemed to predict the whole thing. Why not ask him?

Clifton -

How about the Congressional Record as a source of McCain's take on Fannie-Freddie? Go to Thomas - it's all there

comments on joining as cosponsor FEDERAL HOUSING ENTERPRISE REGULATORY REFORM ACT OF 2005 -- (Senate - May 25, 2006)

Don't forget to look at NYT for its discussion on how the Dems pushed back on Bush/Republican plan in 2003 to add additional oversight/reform to Fannie/Freddie.

Clueless Harry Reid head of the most inept Congress EVAR! 9% Approval of the Do-Nothing Congress.

IMPEACH REID AND PELOSI!!!

People should listen, Ben....they should listen now and they should have been listening all along rather than dissing.

Unfortunately, people in this country put their pathetic party loyalty above all else. Obama, McCain....BOTH MORE OF THE SAME. People will wake up sooner or later....

Good Luck.

http://www.house.gov/paul/congrec/congrec2003/cr091003.htm

Reid and Pelosi, the top Democratic Congressional geniuses who have now brought you....

Democratic Presidential Nominee Barack Obama.........

Wow, what a ringing endorsement......