SONICFROG DOT NET

McCain HAS Lost His Head!

George Will was on to something here, though I don’t think even he realised just how far around the bend the McCain campaign is going. McCain admitted economics is not his strong suit (though he didn’t say that verbatim and it’s taken out of context, you just knew this admission would come back to haunt him). So does it really make sense to halt your campaign to go back to Washington to deal with something for which you admit you are not an expert? And just what does McCain intend to do? Real financial experts Paulson and Bernake have had five days to work on this rotten smelling bailout, the congress has had a few days to get up to speed, and McCain will have maybe a day? Did I miss the publishing of the “Cliffnotes For Government Bailouts”?

PS. I am not a fan of this bailout. Congress does not have the best record dealing with Wall Street. SOX was supposed to fix things and obvious didn’t. And I am even less confident having McCain involved in this thing. I mean really, the McCain / Feingold Campaign Finance Reform bill worked so well…   Then again, maybe McCain’s involvement will bring the same level of success he had with the immigration bill.

Attack of the "MellonHeads", or, Do you still believe in the Bush Doctrine?

In honor of the Herbert Hoover CNBC contributor, James Pethokoukis confronts the MellonHeads, those conservatives who are having a knee-jerk reaction to the inevitable mortgage banking bailout. The moniker “MellonHeads” refers to Herbert Hoover’s Secretary of Treasury Andrew Mellon, who advocated a very hands-off approach on monetary matters, which contributed to the hard slide into the Great Depression.

Many conservatives are concerned about the expansion of government into the market (as if they’re not already there). They argue, among other things, that the bailout would expand government and cost taxpayers billions upon billions of dollars – and they are right. But how much would it cost in money and lives if we do nothing and let the financial markets slide further into collapse, as happened during the Great Depression. Not I’m not here predicting doom and gloom, I don’t think we’re anywhere near that type of economic collapse. Nobody knows what the future holds.

Looking at the names on the “MellonHeads” list, Michelle Malkin, Club for Growth, Newt Gingrich, Bill Kristol, I realized that all of them supported the pre-emptive reasoning for war in Iraq. Curious – why is it that the same people who supported the notion of pre-emption when going to war in Iraq, are the same who won’t support it when trying to save the economy.