In case you were wondering, the title is Today’s Idiotic Letter to the Editor.
If you read on a regular basis you know that occasionally I get my source material from reading letters to the editor in the Providence Journal.I still like that Philipe and Jorge of NewPaper (Now the Phoeniz) fame used to call it the Providence Urinal, then the Blo-Jo. I usually call it a newspaper not fit for the paper on which it is printed.
That said occasionally the folks at ProJo let slip a letter to the editor that comes from someone outside Rhode Island. Most of it is anti-Democrat, anti-Liberal, anti-Homosexual, and other screeds. For some reason the editors at ProJo like the use people from out of state because we Rhode Islanders, probably because they need to in order to get the opposing view because it sure as shit doesn’t exist in RI.
The letter is from a Mr. Rick Cannon. I usually google search the names when I see an out of state letter bashing something. And I found Mr. Cannon’s LinkedIn account. Seems our writer is a pharma guy, which would explain how that makes him an expert in economic matters. Otherwise he has a fairly light web presence.
Rick Cannon: Bad loans, Barney Frank caused meltdown
01:00 AM EDT on Saturday, September 27, 2008
While I was visiting Providence, I had the absolute misfortune of reading Froma Harrop’s Sept. 21 column (“McCain and the meltdown”). It read like a piece of creative fiction, leaving me to wonder if Ms. Harrop really was concerned with understanding the issue, or merely seeking to aid her favored candidate.
Froma Harrop is a regular neo-con target for stating the way things ought to be, but in this paragraph Cannon lays his cards on the table. He’s anti-Obama. This is going to be good.
She seems to have a fundamental lack of understanding about how Wall Street reached this point. The meltdown has been driven by an inordinate number of sub-prime mortgages as well as the risky practices of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. President Bush’s economic policies had nothing to do with this, nor did Phil Gramm.
Congress meddled in the mortgage market, pushing banks to issue a larger number of risky mortgages, using tools such as the Community Redevelopment Act, virtually requiring banks to take on questionable borrowers. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac led the way in irresponsible lending, using their status as a Government Sponsored Entity (GSE) to give the impression of government backing for their loans — in essence, that the government wouldn’t let them fail.
Congress does not act at all except at the behest of the corporate interests. The banks knew precisely what they were going into here and don’t ever try to kid yourself that they didn’t. They rolled high before the bubble burst. Why it’s amazing that my bank offers 1/2% interest on checking!
But Cannon who works for pharma as a territory manager, and is more than likely familiar with the lobbying process knows that if banking, pharma, energy et al don’t like a bill, they employ armies of lobbyists. That’s probably part of Cannon’s job with Nutricia as a territory manager, or maybe he’s just a sales/marketing guy. Previously he worked for Bristol-Meyers Squib. He’s up to his neck in pharma.
So come out, come out Mr. Cannon. Do tell us what your real agenda happens to be.
And who protected this behavior? Congressional Democrats, most notably Barney Frank, who still defends his support for Fan and Fred despite the market turmoil they’ve helped create.
Congress — again, mainly congressional Democrats — browbeat banks and lenders, calling them to Washington in 2001 and 2002 to have them explain the lack of mortgages held by lower-income earners. In other words, Congress wanted to know why lenders weren’t loaning money to people who may not be qualified. Faced with this, lenders loosened standards.
Here’s where I call bullshit. Ever notice where the heaviest marketing of credit cards occurs? In low income areas. Wonder why our bankruptcy law now tilts toward corporations and not the debtor? Yep, they called in congressional favors.
Like I said earlier, the big banks would scream bloody murder if they were forced to take losses. But they accepted it because they knew two things.
The banks as I mentioned earlier are all about making money. And think about it, the real estate market imploded but who was left holding the assets? The banks. Of course I think that ultimately greed results in economic ruin. It always does and we’re seeing it come home to roost right now.
They also knew, or at least thought they new that when the excrement started hitting the fan, the Fed would bail them out.
So here we have it, a net transference of wealth and property. Tell me where the money went and you get a cookie.
But it most certainly was NOT because of Barney Frank.
One of the groups leading the charge against the lenders was ACORN, a favored interest group of Democrats.
Ms. Harrop’s policy prescriptions are no better. The Great Depression earned its name because it lasted so long. It did so because of the heavy-handed policies of the government, much like the ones Barack Obama is proposing now and Ms. Harrop seems to support.
And here we get to the meat of it. Mr. Cannon conveniently forgets that the party that lead us into the Great Depression was none other than his revered Republicans. Remember Herbert Hoover? Like Hoover, the policies of the Republicans that have controlled the house for the better part of twenty years gave us this mess.
It was Hoover by the way who ‘promoted government intervention under the rubric “economic modernization” ‘ aka the first public looting of the federal treasury.
But history, what’s that? I know Cannon is a younger man, probably in his early 30’s judging by his LinkedIn page so he can somewhat be forgiven for not knowing about the role of the Republicans in the first economic crisis. But he is capable of learning and so I would hope he realizes the error of hiw ways sooner than later.
Of course he neglects to mention his Republican credentials here. Honestly, if you’re going to write a good screed, at least have the common decency to tell us up front that you’re a neo-con Repug.
Perhaps if Ms. Harrop better understood the problem, she wouldn’t be so inclined to suggest such ridiculous “remedies.” For someone who accuses John McCain of not knowing much about economics, Ms. Harrop seems to suffer a paucity of economic knowledge herself.
RICK CANNON
Buffalo
I honestly don’t think McCain knows much of anything. I also have a pretty sharp hunch that McCain is in the early stages of dementia. Do we really want a demented old fool as President, one who is statistically likely to kick the bucket before his first term is out, leaving us with a soccer mom as President when the United States is teetering on the edge of the abyss?
For the past 20+ years we’ve seen horror show after horror show of the things brought to us by Republicans. Iran-Contra anyone? Illegal invasions, limited military actions, a military-industrial complex gone wild.
You’re an idiot Mr. Cannon. You are instructed to get some string and some card stock. You are to write on the card stock “Hello, my name is Rick Cannon and I’m an Idiot”. There’s your sign, wear your ignorance proudly.
Spewing Truth in the face of Lies 