I just got done watching Senator McCain’s “major” speech on the economy, and my first impression – especially considering that one of the Arizona Senator’s favorite lines of attack against Barack Obama is that he “lacks substance” – was: “that’s it?!” McCain spent most of his “major speech” scolding the irresponsibility of the banks and their borrowers, coming off as an un-presidential, angry old man. In fact, as near as I can tell, he made only two points that could possibly be construed as substantive policy proposals, and even then that’s being quite liberal (pardon the pun) with the definition of “policy”:

First, it is time to convene a meeting of the nation’s accounting professionals to discuss the current mark to market accounting systems. We are witnessing an unprecedented situation as banks and investors try to determine the appropriate value of the assets they are holding, and there is widespread concern that this approach is exacerbating the credit crunch.”

OK, hold the phone. The financial system is melting down, and his plan to deal with it is to have a meeting with accountants. I thought the Democratic brawl was damaging, but McCain just shot himself in the chest with this.

Since McCain didn’t say it, what we do need are uniform, easily understandable accounting standards that only allow financial institutions to revalue their assets at pre-specified times. In general, the financials of publicly-listed companies should be as transparent as possible; even some of the staunchest free-market advocates (i.e., Joseph Schumpeter) realized the danger opaque finance posed to the market. Of course, the GOP’s hypocritical, inconsistent faux-market dogma prevents McCain from proposing any specific regulations, however necessary, desired, minimal or beneficial they might be. If you doubt this dogma, just pull the wool over your eyes and mindlessly recite something irrelevant like “socialism doesn’t work” until that pesky sense of rationality goes away.

Anyways though, if the first part of McCain’s plan seemed inadequate, here’s the rest:

We should also convene a meeting of the nation’s top mortgage lenders. Working together, they should pledge to provide maximum support and help to their cash-strapped, but credit-worthy customers. They should pledge to do everything possible to keep families in their homes and businesses growing.”

And that’s basically it. Johnny definitely has some work to do in order to implement this bold plan; man, he actually has to stay awake through two whole meetings! I don’t suppose I have to tell anyone reading this that McCain’s “plan” was nothing but pure fluff, though perhaps someone could help me out by letting me know if he was being facetious with his suggestion that lenders come to a voluntary meeting to voluntarily discuss providing voluntary “maximum support” to help “cash-strapped, but credit-worthy” borrowers approaching default. Or maybe he just doesn’t know what he’s talking about – which is certainly plausible, since there’s no such thing as a “cash-strapped, but credit-worthy” borrower; by definition, someone who can’t pay their bills isn’t credit-worthy, and we’ve gotten into enough trouble with dubious credit ratings already.

To his very limited credit, McCain avoids a 0% grade on his speech, since he was right in his point about how the Fed’s willingness to buy just about any junk asset at just under face value is exacerbating the credit crunch. This is preventing price discovery, increasing uncertainty. Furthermore, by flooding the market with newly printed dollars, they’ve hammered the value of the dollar, actually driving money out of the financial markets. And of course all that new money has to go some where, and you’ll be seeing 1970’s-style inflation soon if the Fed doesn’t change course.

So far, McCain’s proposed precisely zero substantive positions, if you’re keeping track.

Continuing on now, in an attempt to walk a fine line between appearing “principled” but not as “playing politics” or “dogmatic,” he did come out against bailouts of financial institutions that “aren’t necessary to prevent systemic failure,” along with reinforcing his opposition to any bailout of consumers whatsoever (which, as I’ll discuss at the end is, unfortunately, precisely what is needed). And thus McCain reveals himself to be a run-of-the-mill Bush Republican; that is, despite the rhetorical slant, he essentially said that he would support the bailout of any financial institution whose failure would have a large enough impact to jeopardize the integrity of the financial system. So… the commercial banks, any unregulated investment bank (though JP Morgan and Goldman-Sachs are in no danger of needing it), and many of the privately-held hedge funds on Wall Street. Uh, sure, no bailouts…yeah.

This is, of course, the de facto (if not de jure) standard GOP position – a condescending and disingenuous lecture on the benefits of laissez-faire for the masses, but socialism for the well-connected financial and industrial elite if they run into trouble. On second thought, maybe there was some grain of truth to his repeated claims of being non-dogmatic, at least if your tax return lists better than $20 million in capital gains. No such pragmatism for those that actually have to work for a living, however.

And what Republican speech would be complete without pushing the GOP’s mindless dogma of tax cuts as an all-purpose, any-time economic cure-all? You know, if you’re, say, an unemployed construction worker, that’s exactly what you need, too – you can now keep an extra tiny fraction of your monthly income. So let’s see here… if you’re unemployed and your monthly income is $0, and you then get your AMT liability repealed (it was previously $0 a year), you’re saving… WOW… $0 per week, month, and year! Where do I sign up?!

Sarcasm aside, I’d have to say that, overall, McCain’s speech sounded eerily similar to Herbert Hoover’s first State of the Union address:

I have… instituted systematic, voluntary measures of cooperation with the business institutions and with State and municipal authorities to make certain that fundamental businesses of the country shall continue as usual, that wages and therefore consuming power shall not be reduced, and that a special effort shall be made to expand construction work in order to assist in equalizing other deficits in employment… I am convinced that through these measures we have reestablished confidence. Wages should remain stable. A very large degree of industrial unemployment and suffering which would otherwise have occurred has been prevented.”

Herbert Hoover, 3 December, 1929

I shouldn’t expect that Bush or his buddy McCain would have much more success than Mr. Hoover, as we’ve long since past the point where the Fed, the much-touted fiscal stimulus package, or even McCain’s mighty tax cuts would have had much effect. As economists say, they are trying to “push on a string” at this point.

We do need a stimulus/public investment package alright, but a $500 billion or so permanent one; a plan that will provide a short- to medium-run stimulus to halt the fall in consumer demand, and deliver real returns in the future. It’s not like we’re short of vital national investment opportunities – free or at least affordable college, alternative energy, infrastructure, preventative and universal healthcare – take your pick. The last part is crucial – in order to be effective, such a plan must be a sound investment that will deliver real returns to Americans in the future. Investments like those – like we made from the 30’s to the mid 60’s – provide millions with opportunities, and allow us to actually grow out of the debt that’s created with the initial outlay. We’ve had 7 years of an administration that gleefully threw away trillions in Iraq and on domestic pork (and who, paradoxically, now touts its “fiscal responsibility” – by cutting veteran’s benefits and vetoing health care for children); doing nothing would be better than more of the same.

Thankfully, in November we have a chance to send the GOP snake-oil peddlers packing. And for the sake of the US economy, the fall can’t come soon enough.

*As an addendum, I know that very few people really know anything about the credit crisis. If anyone would like, please feel free to comment, email, or facebook me and I will explain it. Not to brag too much, but I also predicted the mortgage meltdown, and subsequent credit and bond insurance problems in my 2nd econ course in early 2005, to which I was laughed at by my professor. Who’s laughing now, eh son?!*

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