The fact that most of us don't hold a mortgage, work a full-time job or have kids to support makes it pretty easy to ignore the current economic crisis. It doesn't help that for all but a few of us, economics is more boring than an episode of "Book TV" on C-SPAN 3 featuring an interview with Alan Greenspan.
To help put it in layman's terms, I'll turn to our country's finest wordsmith, George W. Bush, who put it like this, "Wall Street got drunk … It got drunk, and now it's got a hangover." That's right, like a freshman at a frat party, Wall Street got drunk, and now the average American is paying for its hangover.
The most recent episode of economic binge drinking resulted in the near-collapse of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae - which hold about half of America's mortgages - and the collapse of banking giant IndyMac in California. Both Freddy and Fannie had to be bailed out by the federal government in order to prevent shock waves from spreading throughout the entire economy.
But despite this sobering news, the Republican Party kept spirits high by providing yet even more hilarity. Sen. John McCain's economic guru Phil Gramm had this to say about Americans' attitudes toward the economy: "We have sort of become a nation of whiners." That's right, America, don't come crying to the federal government unless you're a multi-billion dollar mortgage lender - in which case it will be happy to bail you out. Besides, as Gramm went on to say, these aren't real economic problems you're experiencing. We're merely in a "mental recession."
These statements provide a great opportunity to take a look at Gramm, his relationship with McCain and the policies they espouse. The McCain-Gramm love story started back in 1993 when the two joined forces to defeat Hillary Clinton's "socialist" health care plan. In 1996, McCain served as national chairman of Gramm's failed presidential bid.
Gramm's biggest accomplishment in the Senate was repealing regulations set in place after the Great Depression, regulations that were meant to prevent the types of unscrupulous investments that caused the greatest economic collapse in American history. As a result of Gramm's legislation, these underhanded investments have resurfaced in the form of the subprime mortgage crisis.
While it would be asinine to support a presidential candidate who offers nothing but the same old recipe for economic disaster, it would be foolish to delude ourselves with the notion that either candidate truly puts our interests first.
When it comes to the subprime mortgage debacle, the other guy running for president isn't exactly squeaky clean either. A former member of Sen. Barack Obama's vice-presidential search committee and his current campaign finance chairwoman both have ties to companies that were allegedly involved in predatory lending.
Most of all, we need to understand deregulation doesn't work. History teaches us that a prosperous economy needs the checks and balances of rational government regulation.
The most salient example of this principle is, of course, the Great Depression, the unholy spawn of laissez-faire capitalism. If that weren't enough to teach us our lesson, there is the Reagan administration's pandering to the ultra rich in the form of deregulation policies and massive tax cuts that contributed to the recession of the early 1980s.
The moral of the story is this: Investors are good at making a quick buck, not ensuring the long-term health of the economy. I wasn't around for the Great Depression, but my grandpa tells me it wasn't very fun. If McCain and his pals have it their way, our generation may just get the chance to experience those hardships first-hand.
Brandon Sack is a second-year biomedical sciences graduate student. His column appears Thursdays.
