McChaos

The Commanderissimo of AEI and EiB and GOP -- also of a few weekly standardisers and maybe a very, very few fellow mugwumps -- has admitted to bein’ no economist. Nevertheless, he knows what he likes, and he wasted very little time gettin’ his druthers onto the table in his Nashville performance :

As president of the United States, [sir], I would order the Secretary of the Treasury to immediately buy up the bad home-loan mortgages in America and renegotiate at the new diminished value of those [houses], and let people be able to make [the] payments and stay in their [houses].

That was J. Sidney's fifth paragraph, according to CQ Transcriptions, but they take him to be very short-winded indeed. Who knows how his hired handlers would want it punctuated? With the smidgen of policy material that came before, it constitutes a Three Point McPlan. Here it is, grammatically as was, but with numbering added:

Now, I have a plan to fix this problem and it has got to do with [I.] ENERGY INDEPENDENCE. We've got to stop sending $700 billion a year to countries that don't want us very -- like us very much. We have to keep Americans' taxes low. All Americans' taxes low. Let's not raise taxes on anybody today. [II.] We obviously have to STOP THIS SPENDING SPREE that's going on in Washington. Do you know that we've laid a $10 trillion debt on these young Americans who are here with us tonight, $500 billion of it we owe to China? We've got to have a package of reforms and it has got to lead to reform prosperity and peace in the world. [III.] And I think that this problem has become so severe, as you know, that we're going to have to do something about home values. You know that home values of retirees continues to decline and people are no longer able to afford their mortgage payments. As president of the United States, Alan, I would order the secretary of the treasury to IMMEDIATELY BUY UP THE BAD HOME LOAN MORTGAGES IN AMERICA and renegotiate at the new value of those homes -- at the diminished value of those homes and let people be able to make those -- be able to make those payments and stay in their homes.

The Commanderissimo, like many another stand-up comedian, presented his list in reverse order of importance. Or so it appears. What he said about each item was longer than what he said about the one before, and above all, only Point III is the least bit new and pulse-quickenin’. He was very likely readin’ his stuff off a mental or virtual three-by-five card, and it is possible that the remainder of his first speech had originally been set down as part of Point the Third:

Is it expensive? Yes. But we all know, my friends, until we stabilize home values in America, we're never going to start turning around and creating jobs and fixing our economy. And we've got to give some trust and confidence back to America. I know how to do that, my friends. And it's my proposal, it's not Senator Obama's proposal, it's not President Bush's proposal. But I know how to get America working again, restore our economy and take care of working Americans. Thank you.

No matter how they formatted the candidate's verbiage, the hired handlers might, in my opinion, have done a better job, inasmuch as the above distinctly gives one the impression that most of the US disemployed are now to become mortgage adjustment specialists -- and thus we dig ourselves out of the bushogenic economic morass! Even JSM can not be so much of an uneconomist as to believe that.

What would a credentialled mammonologue make of the claim that the housing market must be stabilized first, and only after that can Jane Sixpack go back to work at the countin’ house or the hospital that fired her? I have no idea. The proposition is a long way from self-evident, yet after all, ’tis the pride and glory of all echte Wissenschaft to cause us lay sheep to admire and bleat "Who’d ’a’ thunk it?" Like when earth stands still and sun moves, don’t you know. So maybe one of President Truman's two-armed economics professors, the guys who can't park a bicycle straight but always get rich on Wall Street, has actually proved Erst kommt die Unterkunft, dann die Moral!. Or maybe she just thinks she proved it. Or maybe the Commanderissimo's best and brightest atwaterisers made the whole sausage up from scratch?

It does not much matter where the sausage came from, what matters is that here it is, behold it! And, as the Commanderissimo himself points out, make sure you notice what a very pricey sausage it is.

Let us gather together the other scattered limbs of the Commanderissimo's Point Three:

... [Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, Barney Frank] ... we're going to have to go out into the housing market and we're going to have to buy up these bad loans and we're going to have to stabilize home values, and that way Americans like Alan can realize the American dream and stay in their home ... [Freddie Mac, Fannie Mae, B. Hussein Obama] ... I think if we act effectively, if we stabilize the housing market -- which I believe we can, if we go out and buy up these bad loans, so that people can have a new mortgage at the new value of their home -- I think if we get rid of the cronyism and special interest influence in Washington so we can act more effectively.... [FM,FM,BHO] ... The point is -- the point is that we can fix our economy. Americans' workers are the best in the world. They're the fundamental aspect of America's economy. They're the most innovative. They're the best -- they're most -- have best -- we're the best exporters. We're the best importers. They're most effective. They are the best workers in the world. And we've got to give them a chance. They've got -- we've got to give them a chance to do their best again. And they are the innocent bystanders here in what is the biggest financial crisis and challenge of our time. We can do it ... you have to look at our proposals for our economy, not $860 billion in new spending, but for the kinds of reforms that keep people in their jobs, get middle-income Americans working again, and getting our economy moving again....

Not much of it, really, though on the other hand, why should there be? "Buy up these bad loans" is the whole idea, innit? Perhaps the Commanderissimo might have explained who will do the purchasin’ and how much is to be paid and where the money to pay with will come from. Yet perhaps those are matters that only the Sacred Private Sector (prolonged be the shadow thereof!) can determine. And maybe we are lucky he left these details alone rather than get into the dogmatic theology of "not $860 billion in new spending." [1]

The citadel of Big Management Party dogmatic theology has not yet pronounced, as of [10/08/2008 07:27AM]. I find it difficult to imagine the Panzerdenker likin’ their Commanderissimo’s latest brainstorm much. Mais que-sais je from AEIdeology? We'll see.

Meanwhile mere flâneurs et littéraires may attend to the Stephen Leacock side of the matter with some hope of not looking utterly like fools.

Dr. Leacock spoke once of the cowboy who "mounted his horse and rode off in all directions." The Commanderissimo of AEI and EiB and GOP (&c.) is not unlike that, it seems to this keyboard, for the Nashville performance also included a botched and truncated, but unmistakable, version of the Rio Limbaugh mythology about Fannie and Freddie and Barney and Barry. That is to say, the Commanderissimo evidently wants to make sure that Miss Jane Sixpack -- who is probably, amongst other unmentionable things, an unwed mother, possibly even a practitioner of (gasp!) fœticide -- gets to stay in that domicile that she should never have been allowed to get into in the first place. The "return on investment" issue raised in the footnote is bad, but the "moral hazard" issue is graver still.

But what takes the cake, gravitywise, is that Ms. Sixpack, being of course a thoroughly disgustin’ and un-Wasillan layaboutess, an obvious hunk of donkey fodder, is extremely unlike to vote for J. Sidney McCain and/or the Party of Grant under any circumstances.

To review the biddin’: J. Sidney dumps his Big Management sacred theology out the window in order to pander to pond scum -- and pond scum that is well nigh unpanderable to!

What on Gore's green earth can he be up to? Easy to call it "yet another Hail Mary pass," but this time McBozo is throwin’ the damn football off at a right angle, straight into the stands. As it were.

Ah, well: only twenty-seven happy days to go!

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[1] The Commanderissimo is an odd and peripheral kind of militant extremist Republican, but even he, I presume, will call the sort of spendin' that he happens to like not ‘spendin'’ but ‘investment’.

Havin’ started down that road, though, he would have to talk about RIV as well, "RETURN on investment," and that will be a tricky matter with Point Three. I expect.

Once Jane Sixpack gets back home, she can go back to work; after she starts working again, she can make mortgage payments. So far, so good, but the whole exercise would become pointless if her house payments were to be so large she cannot afford them (and keep the house). On the other hand, if the payments are affordable for Jane, can they simultaneously be profitable to Sam’s Property Management and Overseas Aggression Inc.?

It would be interesting to know whether the hired handlers ran this part of the McSausage through a speadsheet program usin’ even the most guesstimated numbers. And that low thought leads one to wonder, even lower, whether the whole thing may not be a strictly electoral sausage. But God knows best.