by hilzoy
"Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain’s national campaign general co-chair was being paid by a Swiss bank to lobby Congress about the U.S. mortgage crisis at the same time he was advising McCain about his economic policy, federal records show.“Countdown with Keith Olbermann” reported Tuesday night that lobbying disclosure forms, filed by the giant Swiss bank UBS, list McCain’s campaign co-chair, former Texas Sen. Phil Gramm, as a lobbyist dealing specifically with legislation regarding the mortgage crisis as recently as Dec. 31, 2007.
Gramm joined the bank in 2002 and had registered as a lobbyist by 2004. UBS filed paperwork deregistering Gramm on April 18 of this year. Gramm continues to serve as a UBS vice chairman."
You can see the lobbying disclosure forms at the MSNBC link above. They are as advertised. (On all except the first, note the little "Next" button at the upper left; it takes you to subsequent pages, on some of which you will find Gramm's name.)
Gramm is bad news with or without his lobbying job. As I wrote two months ago, he was heavily involved in the Enron crash, and some of his legislation helped make the current crisis possible. To quote James Galbraith:
"Phil Gramm's career was as the most aggressive advocate of every predatory and rapacious element that the financial sector has," Galbraith said. "He's a sorcerer's apprentice of instability and disaster in the financial system."
But it just defies belief that McCain would have, as his main economic advisor and one of the people responsible for his plan to deal with the mortgage crisis, someone who was a paid lobbyist for a bank that was heavily involved in that crisis, a firm that has just advised some of its employees not to travel to the US for legal reasons, and that stands to gain or lose a lot depending on what the federal government decides to do about it. What's next: the revelation that McCain's policy on Iran is being written by a lobbyist for the makers of cruise missiles? Or that he has outsourced his health care policy to a lobbyist for the National Funeral Directors Association?
My best guess -- and it's only a guess -- is that there are certain things about himself that McCain is so sure of that he does not see how he could ever be challenged on them. He knows that he is a man of honor, so why would he need to keep people with obvious conflicts of interest away from his campaign -- even when he is taking their advice on topics that, by his own admission, he doesn't know much about? Likewise, he knows that he cares about the military, so why would he need to actually acquire a decent record on veterans' issues?
If this is at all right, it promises to be an entertaining campaign. Meanwhile, will the last lobbyist to leave the McCain campaign please turn out the lights?
As noted (briefly above) Phil Gramm, and his wife, were up to their eyeballs in facilitating the Enron disaster. UBS? BFD.
The Enron connection should be enough to totally discredit McCain as anyone you can depend on for good economic stewardship.
Posted by: Quiddity | May 27, 2008 at 11:33 PM
If Phil Gramm gets anywhere near the levers of power again, then Osama Bin Laden by comparison becomes small potatoes.
I expected more of McCain and I'm a man without expectations.
Phil Gramm is the worst America has to offer.
When the film of Gramm's life is made, we'll be sorry Lionel Barrymore wasn't around to nail the role.
Posted by: John Thullen | May 28, 2008 at 12:08 AM
"Gramm both looks like a snapping turtle and has the personality of one. When he ran for president in 1996 and finished fifth in Iowa, all the profiles written of him included the line "Even his friends don't like him." Self-righteous and strident, Gramm demonized his opponents and used bitter, polarizing rhetoric. During a Senate debate over Social Security, a member pointed out that the proposal under consideration would hurt 80-year-old retirees. "Most people don't have the luxury of living to be 80 years old," Gramm scoffed, "so it's hard for me to feel sorry for them." Well, there is that.
On another occasion, Gramm ridiculed a newspaper photo of poor people who were forced to cut corners to put food on the table. "Did you see the picture?" Gramm asked a crowd. "Here are these people who are skimping to avoid hunger and they are all fat!... We're the only nation in the world where all our poor people are fat." During the fight over health care reform, Gramm said, "We have to blow up this train and the rails and the trestle and kill everyone on board." When an elderly widow in Corsicana told him that cutting Medicare would make it more difficult for her to remain independent, Gramm said, "You haven't thought about a new husband, have you?"
When he first ran for Senate in 1984, Gramm's main attack ad focused on how his opponent, a young state senator, had received a check for $600 raised by a gay group at a male strip joint in San Antonio. He had not solicited the contribution and promptly returned it, but Gramm ran lurid ads about the gay strip show for months.
His tactics have not won him any friends among Texas politicians. Gramm is notorious for letting Texas congressmen do all the work of getting federal projects in their districts and then stepping up to claim credit when the project is approved. The noun for this is "Grammstanding," and it is now part of the political lexicon.
Gramm, the great crusader against government spending, has spent his entire life on the government tit. He was born at a military hospital, raised on his father's Army pay, went to private school at Georgia Military Academy on military insurance after his father died, paid for his college tuition with same, got a National Defense Fellowship to graduate school, taught at a state-supported school, and made generous use of his Senate expense account. In 1987, a Dallas developer named Jerry Stiles flew a construction crew to Maryland to work on Gramm's summer home. Stiles spent $117,000 on the project but was kind enough to bill Gramm only $63,433. When Stiles got in trouble for misusing funds from a savings and loan he owned, Gramm did him some "routine" favors with regulators. Stiles was later convicted on 11 counts of conspiracy and bribery.
As a member of the Senate Finance Committee and the recipient of enormous banking contributions, Gramm did an even bigger favor for the financial industry in 1999 when he sponsored the Financial Services Modernization Act allowing banks, securities firms, and insurance companies to combine. The bill weakened the Community Reinvestment Act, which requires banks to help meet the credit needs of low- and moderate-income neighborhoods. Gramm described community groups that use the CRA as "protection rackets" that extort funds from the poor, powerless banks. The bill is also a disaster for the privacy of bank customers and weakens regulatory supervision. As Gramm proudly declared, "You're not going to find a single bank, insurance company, or securities company that will say they were hurt financially by this bill."
To be fair, Gramm occasionally found it in his heart to assist the poor -- like the time he suggested that mothers on welfare would be better off working for $2.50 an hour. A more typical Gramm vote, though, came on an energy bill that benefited oil and gas companies at the expense of consumers. "There are winners and losers in every economic decision," Gramm said portentously. He was then getting more oil and gas money than any other member of the Senate."
-Molly Ivins
Posted by: Andrew | May 28, 2008 at 12:59 AM
I guess McCain really ought to know:
Lie down with dogs, get up with Phil Gramm.
Posted by: xanax | May 28, 2008 at 01:46 AM
Hilzoy: My best guess -- and it's only a guess -- is that there are certain things about himself that McCain is so sure of that he does not see how he could ever be challenged on them.
Well, he has cause to think so, doesn't he?
Google News has 52 hits on McCain Gramm - some of them unrelated stories.
Google-news Obama Wright, and you get 25,657 hits. (For comparison, you get 1,989 for McCain Hagee.)
As Avedon Carol noted recently on Sideshow, McCain doesn't even need to plan on getting the votes to win: he just needs the media narrative to make it look plausible that he won - and let the Republican election-riggers do what they did for Bush in 2000 and 2004.
Posted by: Jesurgislac | May 28, 2008 at 04:38 AM
What are you guys talking about? Aren't the Dems still battling it out?
Posted by: Mr Furious | May 28, 2008 at 11:01 AM
The difference between Phil Gramm and a bag is shit is the bag.
The difference between John McCain and a bag of shit is...I'll get back to you on this.
Posted by: democommie | May 28, 2008 at 11:28 AM
democommie: the posting rules forbid profanity.
Posted by: hilzoy | May 28, 2008 at 11:56 AM
My best guess -- and it's only a guess -- is that there are certain things about himself that McCain is so sure of that he does not see how he could ever be challenged on them.
This is a close relative of Bush's mentality -- such a degree of utter certainty that he does not question. It's been a very damaging thing for this country, and we don't need more of that.
Posted by: Sashi | May 28, 2008 at 01:14 PM
Sashi, it's also related to the idea that because Americans are "the good guys", anything the US does must be good. If it appears that the US is torturing people, the reality must be that whatever is being done is not torture. If the US captures someone and holds him without charge, legal process, or any intention of releasing him, he must be a bad guy who deserves it. And so on.
Posted by: KCinDC | May 28, 2008 at 01:38 PM
KDinDC I think you hit the nail on the head. That sort of thinking, I believe, is a prime cause of the foreign policy mess the US is currently in. 9/11 was a huge tragedy and it's understandable that it would take time to recover from both the shock and the loss. But after that, the focus should have been on trying to understand why it happened so that we could knowledgeably take steps to prevent it from happening again. But no. After 9/11 you couldn't question. We were good. They were evil. End of story. No thought. No questioning.
I agree with you that that entire mentality is related to the idea that because Americans are "the good guys", anything the US does must be good whether it's torture or invading ("liberating") another country or whatever.
By not thinking in absolutes, I can see that I am a good person who sometimes does things that are wrong. I am a smart person who sometimes does things that are dumb and not in my best interest. It is only by open self-reflection and questioning that I can learn and understand things better so I can make better future choices.
Black and white thinking stops this process cold. Whether it's a person or a country, believing in absolutes stops questioning. Stop the questioning, and you start getting poorer results. No wonder our US foreign relations is currently in such a mess.
While not a Democrat, this is one of the main reasons I am such an active Obama supporter. Obama questions. He openly listens. And he admits mistakes. In fact in his stump speech he specifically says that he will make mistakes. Have we ever heard that from Bush? Or Clinton?
What Hilzoy is saying about McCain isn't so much about his certainty stopping personal questioning, but about his certainty expected to stop others' questioning. But I think the two are related, with absolute certainty being a dangerous thing, regardless.
Posted by: Sashi | May 28, 2008 at 02:42 PM
"Black and white thinking stops this process cold. Whether it's a person or a country, believing in absolutes stops questioning. Stop the questioning, and you start getting poorer results."
I'm reminded that this is also viewable as a map/territory confusion as known via General Semantics.
If your mental map is that the U.S. must be doing good, you won't notice the territory of torture, and imprisonment without any kind of due process.
Posted by: Gary Farber | May 28, 2008 at 02:56 PM
... and people who do notice are "unpatriotic".
Posted by: Sashi | May 28, 2008 at 03:15 PM
democommie may have broken the profanity rules, but he (she?) made me laugh.
Posted by: Gus | May 28, 2008 at 04:36 PM
"Gramm both looks like a snapping turtle and has the personality of one. When he ran for president in 1996 and finished fifth in Iowa, all the profiles written of him included the line "Even his friends don't like him."
Economic adviser nothing. We're looking at Vice Presidential material here!
Posted by: lightning | May 28, 2008 at 10:54 PM