This “progressive” understands the difference. One is a lying traitor Bush lapdog who shows up to vote for destroying the 4th Amendment after swearing to filibuster any bill with immunity while the other is a senile fckwit who cannot remember where his job is, so never shows up to do it.
Great choices for president, yeah right.
Either tweedle traitor Bushbot or tweedle grampy McDumbfck.

“Came here to post this but you beat me to it.”

Great minds and all that stuff. :)

ENRON’S Wendy L. Gramm

July 10th, 2008 at 1:11 pm

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Which one is he? ;>)

‘Forclosure Phil’ Gramm: How John McCain’s Closest Economic Advisor Helped Engineer the Morgage Crisis

…securities firms started bundling all these bad or risky mortgages and securitizing them, and then they would sell these securities or buy them and then buy swaps or sell swaps to cover the possible loss. So it really enabled a lot of firms to go hog wild on the subprime stuff and have—and the brokers who are doing this have no worry about losing, because they were passing on the possible risks of loss to somebody else who never really had to have the assets to cover those losses. And this is all sort of taking place off the books.

So here they were saying, “We were able to do this because of these unregulated swaps,” which some people at this community—Commodity Futures Trading Commission had wanted to regulate. And they were the lobbyists who went to—the financial industry lobbyists who went to Phil Gramm and said, “Listen, we’ve got to have these swaps unregulated.” They convinced Larry Summers, who was Treasury secretary. They convinced Alan Greenspan. And even though the bill was pronounced dead weeks before Phil Gramm did anything, he still managed to slip it through, get it passed by Congress when no one was looking, and no one even read it. You know, no one knew what was in this bill. And then the swap market took off, which helped lead to the subprime crisis.

And why does Gramm hate America? Criticizing Americans is unpatriotic… where’s his flag pin?

We’re being ENRONed again: this time by oil futures contracts speculators who are unnecessarily and very profitably driving up the price of crude oil and hence retail gasoline prices. Curious as to why you are suddenly paying over four dollars a gallon for gasoline? No, it’s not due to “supply-and-demand,” no, it’s not due to “OPEC,” nor is it due to “peak oil.” It’s due to totally unregulated electronic oil futures trading in world markets. Check out the very lucid article that explains the unseen financial machinations in oil futures markets written by F. W. Engdahl on May 2, 2008, entitled, “Perhaps 60% of Today’s Oil Price is Pure Speculation.” It may be viewed at .
http://www.financialsense.com/ editorials/ engdahl/ 2008/ 0502.html

In a nutshell, he suggests that the Bush Administration dropped the ball in January 2006, when they allowed totally unregulated electronic trading of oil futures contracts in New York. Previously these electronic trades had been made at the London Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) Futures Market. With that decision by the Bush Administration, all of the world’s oil prices were then opened to upward pressure from speculative futures contracts. In essence, oil futures contracts made by speculators, banks, hedge funds and pension funds all competed with real demand on the spot markets and had the effect of driving up both wholesale oil prices and retail gasoline prices. Speculators have made billions of dollars on their trading of oil futures contracts. All of their profits come right out of our pockets.

Even with a stable oil supply, there is a slow worldwide increase in demand for oil, which creates a long-term upward pressure on oil prices. However, with the relentless saber-rattling and war-mongering by Bush and Cheney in the last several years, and the more recent war talks by McCain and the Israelis, the oil futures markets are rife with speculation and paranoia. This war talk keeps ratcheting up the prices on the oil futures contracts and hence the wholesale spot market prices. It is an endless spiral of greed and paranoia.

As long as there is no tough and effective oversight of the electronic oil futures markets by the Bush Administration, the oil prices will climb endlessly. These oil prices will be quickly followed by hikes in the retail gasoline prices at the pump. The 60% speculation share of the $4.25/gallon gasoline price, is about $2.55/gallon, which is what we consumers are paying to these oil speculators as a “service fee.” Not a bad “fee,” since the speculators produce no usable goods or services…Just a few large greedy oil futures traders helping themselves to your gas money.
Without this added-on oil futures “service fee,” you would be paying about $1.75/gallon for gasoline. Write, call or smoke-signal your Representatives and Senators today and suggest that they read the June 2006 report by The U. S. Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations entitled, “The Role of Market Speculation in Rising Oil and Gas Prices.” Then demand that they investigate and then force the Bush Administration to firmly regulate the computerized oil futures contracts trading in New York, London and Dubai.

This electronic oil price futures scandal is costing US drivers about $969,000,000.00 per day! That number is based on 60% speculation fee of a gasoline price of $4.25/gallon and on US 2004 consumption of 380,000,000 gallons/day. Tell you Senators and Congresspersons to simply shut down this unregulated electronic oil futures contract trading market. Then the price of gasoline will slowly drop to about $1.75/gallon…The only way that oil price futures contracts make money is if the price of oil goes up in the future, say, 30, 60 or 90 days later. This futures market serves no social need. It is just for corporate greed. The corporate speculators are probably also gaming/ENRONing the wheat and corn futures markets the same way.

ENRON’S Wendy L. Gramm

<a href=”http://www.apfn.org/enron/gramm.htm”ENRON’S Wendy L. Gramm

You know what else sells newspapers?

The notion that news corporations would advance the idea of a bad economy to benefit themselves is just plain stupid. A bad economy does not produce more subscribers.

People who have lost their homes and jobs because of guys like Gramm and the media moguls who keep reporting fantasies instead of facts.

Okay then, as Gramm is McCain’s economic adviser:

1) Which of Gramm’s views ARE representative of McCain’s views?
2) Which of Gramm’s views have informed McCain’s economic views?

July 10th, 2008 at 12:22 pm
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Because the money and power is firmly in the hands of right of center corporations.

“You kids and your darned whining about gas prices and foreclosures and stuff. You don’t know anything. Why when I was your age we had to walk 3 miles to school, barefoot in the snow from September to June and it was uphill both ways. Now quit your stupid whining and get off my damned lawn.”

I look at it as McCain being bi-textual.

Ouch. But very funny.

Ray Edmonds Says:

Phil Gramm is your typical Republican Country Club type. He doesn’t feel the pain us Americans are having. I would love for him to go to a Union meeting and call them whiners. He would end up whining.
He’s a liar and a fraud.

Is it possible to whine after you’ve been beaten unconscious? (not that I’d either want or encourage)

I suppose an involuntary whine is all they could hope for.

“Misery sells newspapers,” Mr. Gramm said.

You know what else sells newspapers? Consumers who have money and confidence in the economy.

The notion that news corporations would advance the idea of a bad economy to benefit themselves is just plain stupid. A bad economy does not produce more subscribers.

Get your John McCain NOPE t-shirts and stickers here.

Who’s to blame for the biggest financial catastrophe of our time? There are plenty of culprits, but one candidate for lead perp is former Sen. Phil Gramm. Eight years ago, as part of a decades-long anti-regulatory crusade, Gramm pulled a sly legislative maneuver that greased the way to the multibillion-dollar subprime meltdown. Yet has Gramm been banished from the corridors of power? Reviled as the villain who bankrupted Middle America? Hardly. Now a well-paid executive at a Swiss bank, Gramm cochairs Sen. John McCain’s presidential campaign and advises the Republican candidate on economic matters. He’s been mentioned as a possible Treasury secretary should McCain win. That’s right: A guy who helped screw up the global financial system could end up in charge of US economic policy. Talk about a market failure.

otherwise I’d be worried…..