McCain: Crisis.

As share prices collapse, in their heaviest fall for seven years, the McCain/Palin campaign rush out this ad.

Firstly, it astonishing to hear McCain say that the economy is in crisis as he's been saying the opposite for the longest time now.



Now, after a series of events so catastrophic that even McCain can't ignore them, he rushes out this ad pretending that only he and Palin have the "experience" needed - and no, I am not making that up - to guide the US through the dark times ahead.

The US authorities were seeking to put together a $40bn rescue package for insurer AIG last night amid concern that bad investments compounded by the year-long credit crunch could send it into bankruptcy, similar to the demise of the investment bank Lehman Brothers.

Lehman collapsed in a startling financial turn of events which saw another hallowed Wall Street name, Merrill Lynch, capitulate in a hastily arranged $50bn takeover by Bank of America.

By the close of trading in New York, the Dow Jones industrial average was down 504 points to 10,917 - its steepest points decline since the day the markets reopened after the terrorist attacks of September 11 2001 and the sixth biggest drop in the index's history.

I have been sickened recently watching intelligent Republicans pretending that Sarah Palin is ready for the job of VP and pretending that it's no big deal that she doesn't know what the Bush Doctrine is. This is deeply cynical and it's the worst example I have ever seen of people putting party before country. Which is the height of irony when one considers the slogan which McCain is running on.

The events of the past few days show how serious the economic crisis actually is. McCain has constantly told the US that the economy is sound. He was saying that even as the unemployment rate hit 6.1%, with his economic advisor stating that there was nothing wrong with the economy and that the US had become "a nation of whiners".

I wonder, has McCain now decided that this is no longer "a mental recession"? And, having proven himself to be utterly ignorant of the economic winds which were swirling around him, on what planet does he now get to hold himself up as the agent of change needed to rescue this economy which he, until recently, had been telling us was "fundamentally sound"?

This ad, like many of McCain's ads, is simply untrue. It's like everything else about his recent campaign as it is being currently run by Rove's protege's: It's slick, it's well made, and it is built upon a great big fat lie.

John McCain knows nothing about the economy, as his every utterance before today proves beyond all reasonable doubt.

For him now to claim that he is the answer to America's economic problems is simply a sick joke.

Up until now he has been the lone figure insisting that there was no economic problem. The man is a fool on this subject, and only fools would elect him at such a time.

UPDATE:

Were any more proof needed, this is what McCain was saying YESTERDAY, on the very day that Lehman and Merrill Lynch were hitting the rocks:



By the close of the day he's putting out ads talking about a "crisis". The man's a joke.

UPDATE II:

And why is McCain suddenly favouring regulation? I thought, as a Reagan Republican, he believes that the market will sort everything out?

While Mr. McCain has cited the need for additional oversight when it comes to specific situations, like the mortgage problems behind the current shocks on Wall Street, he has consistently characterized himself as fundamentally a deregulator and he has no history prior to the presidential campaign of advocating steps to tighten standards on investment firms.

If all this upheaval proves anything it is that Reaganism is dead. The very people who spent the eighties crying for "less regulation, less regulation, less regulation" are seeing the fruits of their labour come home in spades.

One of the reason why the rest of us were always stating that their should be more regulation is for the very reason that this whole thing went tits up; people are greedy, they sell you stuff you can't afford and then, if allowed, they will sell the bad risk debt on to someone else.

For most people, buying a home is the most important investment they will ever make in their lives, and they deserve for an investment of that size to be protected, even if that sometimes means protecting them from themselves. But it's especially necessary when they are dealing with professionals who know that they can't afford the product but sell it to them anyway so as to pocket their commission.

It should not be forgotten -as McCain now calls for regulation - that he was one of the people who, always, loudly opposed such a thing. This is simply the latest flip-flop from the man who will say anything in the hope of winning.

Tags: McCain, Obama, US election 2008, economy