McCain claims Wall Street problems are the result of "corruption": (bumped up)

Did you watch any of the three network morning shows this morning? Each had an interview with McCain where he said that the credit crunch is the result of "corruption". In the longest interview, on NBC's Today show, McCain used that word about a dozen times. (Will try to find transcript and post it later.)

It's not corruption. For the most part, the credit problem is the result of a decades-long trend of accepting risk and over-leveraging. Will the public buy McCain's "corruption" argument? Especially since much of the reckless credit expansion was the result of many Americans participating, either by being one of those sub-prime borrowers or a person that took out money from their homes to purchase, for example, an SUV.

McCain never directly addressed the issues present in the questions. All he had to say was that the American worker is great! Rah! Rah!

For those people who are concerned about their situation, McCain's performance must have seemed off-key.

(Biden was also on CBS and wasn't perfect, but got more into the details of the credit crisis than McCain.)

UPDATE:

McCain said in an interview that he didn't want the government to bail out AIG. "But there are literally millions of people whose retirement, whose investment, whose insurance were at risk here," he said in an interview with "Good Morning America" on ABC. "They were going to have their lives destroyed because of the greed and excess and corruption."

Elaborating on the charge of corruption, McCain said that many Wall Street executives had claimed "everything's fine, not to worry" and that Congress and regulators had paid no attention. "All of them were asleep at the switch," he said, and went on to blame special interests and lobbyists as well.

Asked for specific examples of corruption regarding AIG, senior McCain campaign adviser Steve Schmidt offered none.

posted by Quiddity at 9/16/2008 08:26:00 AM