From: yodaiken@chelm.cs.umass.edu (victor yodaiken)
Newsgroups: ne.politics
Subject: Re: S&L deregulation
Date: 8 Sep 92 16:27:36 GMT
Organization: University of Massachusetts, Amherst

In article <15537@ksr.com> cher@ksr.com (Mike Cherepov) writes:
>In article <52627@dime.cs.umass.edu> yodaiken@chelm.cs.umass.edu (victor yodaiken) writes:
>>                   ... The Reagan administration proposed and pushed
>>through  a classical example of Republican "deregulation", in which the
>>S&Ls were freed of much oversight, but the public was obligated to
>>pay the costs.
>
>Well, the interest rate (service-side) de-regulation took place under
>Carter.  The asset-side de-regulation (the Garn-St Germain act) took
>place under Reagan, but was quite bipartisan, I believe.  De-regulation
>had to come willy-nilly driven by technology, internationalization and
>securitization of banking.  It would have come had Carter remained the
>president.  One could hope against experience that it would have been
>handled better by Carter's administration.
>
>Basically, I have no interest in debating the fine points of this story
>with you because the lack of knowledge on both sides seem to hamper
>a well-informed discussion.  I would just repeat that your estimation of
>Reagan/Bush's share of the blame is uniquely wild-eyed and hostile
>compared to the numerous mainstream reports and analyses I have read.

The facts remain that Reagan and Bush had the constitutional 
responsibility to enforce the law and safeguard the taxpayers dollars
trhough auditing and banking regulations. If you are going to complain
about government spending it seems only fair that the responsibility
for the ever increasing costs of the S&L, banking, and soon to come
insurance collapse be awarded to those who ran the Justice department
and the various regulatory agencies who looked the other way while
the looting took place.

>
>>                            ... The moral level of the Regan/Bush
>>right is that of habitual criminals: someone else is always to blame.
>
>Er, pause a second before issuing yourself a medal for moral superiority. 
>Actually, it seems that the extreme left's affliction by this disease is
>far greater.  The notion of individual responsibility is banished, even
>for looters, rioters and real habitual criminals.  The blame is put
>everyplace else: on the greed of the ruling class, on systemic oppression
>of the working people, on institutional racism, on societal injustice,
>on selfish merchants, heartless bosses...

Certainly one has to hold rioters responsible for their actions, but
even making this comparison is absurd. You excuse those at the pinnacle
of power from responsibility for the disasters which took place during
their time in office, yet want to go on at length about the individual
responsibility of those who have essentially zero power.
Back before the neo-right introduced it's warm and fuzzy notion of the
responsibilities of powerful officials, it was generally accepted that
when one voluntarily accepted or grabbed a higher office, one should
be held accountable to a higher moral standard than that applied to 
ordinary citizens. The Reagan-Bush right, however, seems to believe that
the poor fellows who are forced to run the show must not be held to 
a standard that would slow down a three-card monte street hustler. 
From the republican "chicken hawks" like Gingrich, Quayle, and Buchanon
who valiantly urged that other people be drafted and sent to vietnam,
to folks like Congressman Bauman, who may have invented the term 
"family values" as a code-word for fascism and who was busted in the
for hiring a 16 year male prostitute, from "I was out of the loop" Bush,
to "Never Indicted" Ed Meese, it's been twelve years of sleaze and 
blaming the other guy.



>
>	Mike Cherepov
>		solely to blame for the stuff typed above


-- 


yodaiken@chelm.cs.umass.edu