Guest Commentary

Crony Capitalism
8/2012

Vice President Biden has created another stir by saying Governor Romney “would put y’all back in chains” – which most of us just chalked up as yet another gaffe by the VP. I’m sure (well, sort of) he wasn’t actually referring to slavery; it was just another empty-headed comment like dozens of others from the mouth of ‘ole Joe, the gift which keeps on giving.

But, since he drew attention to the issue, let’s look a bit deeper: The first half of this sentence was that Romney “will ‘unchain’ Wall Street”. If we look past the rhetoric, and into the facts, we can see just who is keeping Wall Street honest.

Corporate fraud convictions:
Clinton: 1,000+
Bush:    1,300+
Obama:       0

Did Presidents Clinton and Bush totally clean up Wall Street? Perhaps W hunted the crooks into extinction, and they’re all sharing the Happy Hunting Ground with dinosaurs and dodo birds. Are you buying that? Me neither. In 2008, Wall Street pumped nearly twice as much money into President Obama’s campaign as they donated to McCain, and it looks to me like it paid off – not only has the Obama Administration failed to convict any Wall Street executives, they haven’t even charged any!

‘Ole Joe may put the “dunder” in dunderhead, but Obama surely puts the “crony” in capitalism.

Terry Smith

Links:
Who really unchained Wall Street?
Campaign donations  2008