|
As several of us have written before, the West Virginia GOP has made "Unleashing Capitalism" a central tenet of their 2008 election effort.
But as we've seen time after time, from coal barons not following safety regulations leading to the death of miners to the Bush administration's cutting of food and safety inspectors leading to the selling of unsafe products, unleashed capitalism is a very dangerous thing for people. It's also not even good for businesses.
The aftershocks through the economy from the housing bubble burst aren't done yet. We're heading for a big economic downturn, in large part because of the same forces of unfettered capitalism that McKinney and West Virginia Republicans want for the state.
Paul Krugman:
How bad is it? Well, I've never seen financial insiders this spooked - not even during the Asian crisis of 1997-98, when economic dominoes seemed to be falling all around the world.
This time, market players seem truly horrified - because they've suddenly realized that they don't understand the complex financial system they created.
Before I get to that, however, let's talk about what's happening right now.
Credit - lending between market players - is to the financial markets what motor oil is to car engines. The ability to raise cash on short notice, which is what people mean when they talk about "liquidity," is an essential lubricant for the markets, and for the economy as a whole.
But liquidity has been drying up. Some credit markets have effectively closed up shop. Interest rates in other markets - like the London market, in which banks lend to each other - have risen even as interest rates on U.S. government debt, which is still considered safe, have plunged.
"What we are witnessing," says Bill Gross of the bond manager Pimco, "is essentially the breakdown of our modern-day banking system, a complex of leveraged lending so hard to understand that Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke required a face-to-face refresher course from hedge fund managers in mid-August."
Snip
Why was this allowed to happen? At a deep level, I believe that the problem was ideological: policy makers, committed to the view that the market is always right, simply ignored the warning signs. We know, in particular, that Alan Greenspan brushed aside warnings from Edward Gramlich, who was a member of the Federal Reserve Board, about a potential subprime crisis.
And free-market orthodoxy dies hard. Just a few weeks ago Henry Paulson, the Treasury secretary, admitted to Fortune magazine that financial innovation got ahead of regulation - but added, "I don't think we'd want it the other way around." Is that your final answer, Mr. Secretary?
Now, Mr. Paulson's new proposal to help borrowers renegotiate their mortgage payments and avoid foreclosure sounds in principle like a good idea (although we have yet to hear any details). Realistically, however, it won't make more than a small dent in the subprime problem.
The bottom line is that policy makers left the financial industry free to innovate - and what it did was to innovate itself, and the rest of us, into a big, nasty mess.
Republican U.S. Rep. Shelley Moore Capito (Vulnerable Rubberstamp-WV02) recently had her party get her a seat on a House subcommittee to deal with the mortgage crisis. My strong suspicion is she wanted to make sure she had a steady stream of campaign contributions from the mortgage companies and financial investment institutions in exchange for her looking out for their interests in not getting stuck with the bad debt that their own unfettered financial policies created. Look for her to be joining efforts for the taxpayers to get stuck with the investment companies' bad debt in the form of bailouts to the big lenders. The GOP hates welfare except when it's massive corporate welfare just as they're for personal responsibility except when it involves investors' irresponsibility.
But I don't think West Virginians, who have been repeated victims of "unleashed capitalism" in the form of dead workers, polluted wells, destroyed mountaintops, and jobs shipped overseas, want or need what McKinney and the West Virginia Republicans are trying to sell.
Moreover, the Democratic Party wins support by forcefully articulating economic populism - from securing government projects to attacking free trade and globalization - and by advocating government regulation. Nowhere is this truer than in mine safety: In such a small state, an event like the Sago mine disaster, which left a dozen workers dead in January 2006, touches everyone.
"People have a strong sense here that there should be restraints," said Rick Wilson, director of the liberal West Virginia Economic Justice Project.
McKinney and his "Unleashing Capitalism" drive has alienated many of the social conservatives in his own party.
Secondly, McKinney needs to apologize to all those social conservatives and others who have fought so hard to advance a consistent position on matters related to:
1. The right to life,
2. The right to bear arms,
3. The right to believe that their Republican Party Chairman at least will not undermine his own party's platform regarding those rights in his public remarks.
It's not enough just to assure his party members that he meant no harm. His outbursts have happened too many times already. Rather, he needs to back up and try over again, demonstrating that he is no threat to their core beliefs somehow. Maybe listening would help.
snip
If McKinney can't achieve that level of comfort, he really ought to find a new hobby for everyone's sake. He may have blown his chance with too many faux pas recently, but people can forgive if they see demonstrated sincerity and growth.
There is room in any party for some disagreement. And yes, the Republican Party should spend at least as much time on economic matters as on social issues. But it shouldn't surprise McKinney that he has offended so many with remarks that show a half-hearted enthusiasm or even, incredibly, a contempt for cherished parts of his own party's platform.
That was from a Huntington News editorial on Nov. 9.
But readers of West Virginia Blue might remember my blog brother Clem pointed out the same thing more than a month earlier on Oct. 5.
It's clear the West Virginia Republican party has made a choice between values voters and business interests. W.Va. GOP Chairman Doug McKinney has tossed evangelicals out the window.
So where does that leave McKinney's vaunted, short-sighted "Unleashing Capitalism" campaign?
It looks to me like it's in a ditch, the same place McKinney and his ilk of West Virginia bad-mouthers keep trying to steer the state. I guess it's human nature for those of us passing by McKinney and the West Virginia GOP's crash to turn to look at the wreckage.
|
