DON'T BLAME BUBBA

New York Post ^ | July 14, 2002 | By PETER BEINART

[mewzilla]

All right, let's forget all about morality.

Why didn't Bubba fight for Levitt's proposal?

[FITZ]

Ms. Eula Goodnoght to the store recently where she bought for about $50 an item

I hope she doesn't complain when she loses her job because a foreigner has it.

[sakic]

The writer quotes only two who, arguably, blame corporate corruption on Clinton's moral shortcomings. I doubt that most conservatives, even so-called "Bushbots," are saying Clinton caused the type of dishonesty manifest by Arthur Anderson, Enron, et al.

Your comment runs in direct contrast to an enormous amount of comments here at FR and even to some comments in this thread.

[FITZ]

Still Bubba took credit --so let him take blame too. The whole problem with the 90s economy is it was never based on anything but stock market speculation, high consumer debt and now we know cooked books. A president alone doesn't control it all ----but we could look again at Whitewater and how the Clintons managed real estate to know how little they know about economy.

[nicmarlo]

If I understand correctly, the SEC is the watch dog of banks, as well as accounting firms and stock brokerage firms. And if this is correct, the SEC is severely lacking in the personnel to follow companies, to police them. I believe it is within a president's power to increase the SEC's budget, so personnel and updated technology can be added. If Klinton was so interested in improving the ability for the SEC to work effectively, catch crooks, overlook investments that send out red flags, then I blame the one who was in charge and neglected the necessary increase of funds.

The analogy would be like a mayor, or legislature of an area, which has the power to increase funding for police...to hire more, to have better equipment to do their jobs. The one in charge, the one able to provide the funding, must take the blame if, through their neglect or oversight, the citizens are being harmed by crooks.

Crooks thrive in an environment where there is little or no policing, or if there is, the inability to police effectively due to lack of enough personnel or substandard technology.

Crooks cannot be regulated away, but they can be watched and anticipated. And that is the "chief's" job.

[mewzilla]

Bubba allowed Levitt's proposal to go down in flames. Why shouldn't Bubba be held to account for that?

[nightdriver]

"... You can't get punished until you're caught and by the way, all of the execs of today's scandals are getting away with it."

That is, all except congress who, since LBJ's time, have done the "Enron maneuver" on our Social Security "trust fund." without any observable consequences whatsoever.

[x]

I don't think the particularly ugly cheap shot at Reagan as a "divorcé who neglected his children" will convince any one. Surely you don't believe decent people will be able to read that with out gagging. From what I've heard the legislation Beinart attacks was intended to do away with frivolous lawsuits, not responsible oversight.

Three generations of American have grown up with Harding and Coolidge being blamed for the Great Depression, while Democrats generally avoid facing the consequences of their economic policies. After all the talk about the 80s as the "Decade of Greed," shouldn't Clinton bear the consequences of what happened under his watch? The WSJ and other defenders of Boesky have made an argument that Junk bonds, leveraged buyouts and the other things complained of in the 80s were good for the economy. I don't know if that's a valid argument, but it is striking that such arguments aren't made now. To be sure, what happened at Enron, Worldcom, Arthur Andersen and elsewhere was more shielded from public view, but it seems to have been without an upside.

Moreover Beinart's argument cuts both ways. If there was corporate corruption before Clinton, it also existed whatever Gingrich might do. The person at the top should take his lumps now, as in the past. A President committed to dealing with such an issue wouldn't let peripheral legislation of the sort mentioned by Beinart determine the country's course. Rooting out corporate corruption could have been the "legacy" Bubba was so desperately searching for. I would be more open to Beinart's argument if Clinton had gone to the country on this, and still been defeated by Congress. As it is, it looks like he was only too happy to play along or let sleeping dogs lie.

You apparently do not remember all the chatter of the Clinton years about how the business cycle was a "thing of the past." The reproach so often made against Coolidge, that he should have dampened market enthusiasm and kept closer watch on bubbles and pyramid schemes, applies as much to Bubba as to Cal.

[EternalHope]

You've settled into the same old tired routine of morality blah blah blah and proven what the author's central assertion is.

Morality is a tired old routine?

Character matters, especially the character of our leaders.

If you do not understand that, then nothing anyone can say will educate you.

[backhoe]

Stay Safe Backhoe !

And you & yours, too, neighbor. God willing, we'll get through this crap in more-or-less one piece.

[adversarial]

LOTS of arguments are wrong; fewer are absurdly wrong. But the absurd ones are sometimes the most revealing

so....this guy is an expert in absurd arguments?
his absured argument isn't really that good

[Vinnie]

Dishonest people will be dishonest, and commit acts of dishonesty, if they think they'll get away with it, but I still think it would take more than just "Clinton got away with it, so maybe I will, too" to expose oneself to the kind of liability now facing WorldCom, Tyco, Enron, etc.

It was more than that. Clinton could be bought and all the CEOs knew it. If you wanted to go on a 'trade mission' with Ron Brown, you greased Clinton's palm with $50k and you were on the plane. If you wanted special favors, ie. a license to export some item to India, you greased Clinton's palm w/ a large sum of dollars.
He was totally corrupt and the idea of sleazy accounting was part and parcel to his administration. After all he wanted a 'good economy' legacy and cooking the books to make that happen didn't bother him in the least.

[bvw]

What is the issue at hand, is it your toilet paper?

[RJCogburn]

I hope she doesn't complain when she loses her job because a foreigner has it.

Ms. Eula will not complain any more than she would if she lost her job because tariff wars prevented her from selling her product overseas. Actually she will complain a lot more in the second circumstance.

[mewzilla]

You know, I can't for the life of me understand why no-one has asked Levitt for copies of those letters he was sent. I really do think they'd make some interesting reading. And I'd also like to know what correspondence Bubba sent Levitt on the subject, and visa versa.

[FITZ]

Also the Clinton government was very good at cooking the books themselves. They lied about the true state of the economy and there were warnings all along:

The Hidden State of the Clinton Economy

The official government measures of unemployment and poverty disguise the fact that millions of Americans can't make a decent living

http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/98oct/clintec.htm

[mountaineer]

Your comment runs in direct contrast to an enormous amount of comments here at FR and even to some comments in this thread.

Seems to me that would tend to disprove some of the sweeping generalizations made around here, though I doubt it would stop anyone from making them.

[RJCogburn]

If I understand correctly, the SEC is the watch dog of banks, as well as accounting firms and stock brokerage firms. And if this is correct, the SEC is severely lacking in the personnel to follow companies, to police them.

That makes the Republicans in 1995 sound even worse, does it not? From the above article:

And that same year the House and Senate froze the budget of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), even though the agency (as the General Accounting Office would later find) already lacked the staff to adequately monitor corporate balance sheets.

[Brilliant]

There are plenty of things Clinton did and did not do that had a greater effect on the crisis beyond issuing this veto. It was illegal to do these things before the veto, and it's illegal to do them now.

[FITZ]

http://www.dailyrepublican.com/clintonecon3.html

Here's an article written in 1996 about Clinton's cooking the books on the economy to be reelected. Like everything, his great economy was a lie, they didn't look at the huge amount of job losses and harm being done to the American middle class when they would come up with their numbers. Some people obviously believed the lie.