conjurdude

I love how Obama has been in office less than two weeks, and everything is already his fault. And if not his, then they're Nancy Pelosi's or Harry Reid's doing.

Hate to break it to the troglodytes out there, but the machinations that caused this economic mess were put into play long before Obama was nominated, before the Democrats took back control of the House and Senate, and in some cases, even before Clinton held office.

It's called "deregulation," and it's something Republicans love because it means their corporate benefactors get to make money by the sweaty handful with no oversight, no responsibility, and in many cases, no competition. Remember that Savings and Loan scandal that McCain was involved in, as one of the Keating Five? That was deregulation. Remember the California Power Crises that Enron engineered? Again, deregulation. Fanny Mae and Freddie Mac lending out money to people that really weren't at all qualified? Deregulation. Credit default swaps? Deregulation. (Go listen to This American Life's show about that one...then try to find someone to rock you to sleep...)

And yes, in several of these things, Democrats were complicit. But to blame the nascent administration for them, and invoke the "socialism" boogeyman without having a fucking clue what socialism even is, is just disingenuous at best, and a flat out lie at worst. Then again, if it means having to admit their entire ideology is wrong, it's not surprising that free-market economists, paleoconservative pundits and right wing Republicans are lying through their teeth. If they can pretend their ideas were correct, just badly implemented, they can try to get people to stop paying attention to the white elephant (how appropriate!) in the room.