Very late, they improvised an impractical plan for buying up to $700-billion of the defaulted real estate-related debt, but the CDOs are not easily divided and the federal government had no capability for negotiating such transactions. And so it was agreed that the government would, as it did in the 1930’s, buy preferred shares in the encumbered institutions at discounted prices, and let the banks work it out with their clients and debtors.
The foregoing analysis makes no pretense to economic sophistication, but I saw no evidence that either candidate is capable of giving even this minimalist description of what has panicked the country, discomfited the whole financial world and caused foreigners to resume the habit that began with the U.S. rejection of the Treaty of Versailles, and blame everything bad on America. The collapse of the United States was jubilantly announced by the international left, probably at least two centuries prematurely. As McCain flailed wildly, Obama sagely allowed the crisis to reflect badly on Republicans generally, though the Clinton administration was certainly not blameless.
Obama is essentially offering the white population of the United States, in exchange for his residency in the White House, an end to the racial guilt complex that’s formed over 145 years of quasi-segregation of African- Americans, following what Lincoln called “the bondman’s 250 years of unrequited toil.” And as a bonus, this will also be the end of the hackneyed and checkered spokesmanship for the black community of scoundrels such as Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, Charlie Rangel and the Obama family’s recently discharged pastor, Jeremiah Wright.
Over the last 60 years in the United States, the governing party has usually changed after two terms. The stylistic shortcomings of the second Bush administration, McCain’s blunderbuss campaign and the financial crisis have all reinforced that likelihood. Under the Mephistophelean influence of the most biased media coverage of a U.S. election since Barry Goldwater in 1964, Obama’s peculiar associations have been downplayed and McCain has been portrayed as serving up a smear-job for raising them at all.
