Quote of the Day

Mike Lane, Comics.com

Words of wisdom from the De-regulator-In-Chief, John McCain:

Here’s what McCain has to say about the wonders of market-based health reform:

Opening up the health insurance market to more vigorous nationwide competition, as we have done over the last decade in banking, would provide more choices of innovative products less burdened by the worst excesses of state-based regulation.

Via Paul Krugman, McCain on banking and health.

And then there's this, on Social Security:

"Without privatization, I don't see how you can possibly, over time, make sure that young Americans are able to receive Social Security benefits," McCain declares at a December 2004 event in New Hampshire.

See McCain Claimed "Privatization" Was Necessary For Social Security.

Scared yet? On Bill Maher's Real Time, Naomi Klein, author of The Shock Doctrine, gives a lesson in (De)Regulation For Dummies:

The disaster is far from over. They’ve actually just relocated. The disaster was on Wall Street and they have moved the disaster to Main Street by accepting those debts and you said they didn’t have to bomb, the bomb has yet to detonate. The bomb is the debt that has now been transferred to the taxpayers so it detonates when, if John McCain becomes president in the midst of an economic crisis and says look we’re in trouble, we have a disaster on our hands, we have to privatize social security, we can’t afford health care, we can’t afford food stamps, we need more deregulation, more privatization. The thesis of the Shock Doctrine is you need a disaster to rationalize these very unpopular policies so the real disaster has yet to come.The real disaster is the debt that is going to explode on the American taxpayers. And then they do economic shock therapy.

They had to step in, but I don’t think they had to step in in the way they did. The reason why the stock market went up on Wall Street today is because it’s Christmas morning. Imagine waking up and being told your credit card debits have been wiped out, your mortgage has been erased. There’s a fairy godmother that has taken care of you. A guardian angel. But actually that’s the tax payers.

See the video at Crooks and Liars.