Character(s) and Economics

First of all, I note that this is a first post after a two month absence. Facing what is perhaps the most significant Presidential Election of our times and an economics debacle not matched since the Great Depression, I decided some months ago to move from my former Rocky Mountain National Redoubt to the Cascade National Redoubt and have spent the last two months doing just that.

Now to the topics. The Presidential campaign is now entering its last pre-election phase. Has we get into the "down and dirty" segment, one issue seems to be: Whose past associations are worse? Is it the Obama-Ayers connection, or the McCain-Keating connection?

Both have been thoroughly gone over in the past. Based on memory, here is my own take.

The Obama-Ayers association apparently began a number of years ago, when Obama decided to try his hand in Illinois State politics. He ran for the seat of a retiring Democratic, with her endorsement and support. One of his early fund raising events, which was set-up by the retiring Democrat, was held at the home of Ayers. At that time Ayers, while not renouncing his radical past, had become a more-or-less mainstream Democrat liberal in the Chicago political milieu. In all probability, Obama was grateful for his early political support and sort of "inherited" the connection from his predecessor.

Ayers' radicalism stemmed from is participation (and leadership) within the anti-war, anti-capitalism organization termed the "Weathermen," after Bob Dylan's famous song line: "You don't need to be a weatherman to know which way the wind is blowing."

The group was a coalition of various "anti" individualists falling somewhere between socialism and nihilism and everything in between. Ayers and his wife were early group founders. The Weathermen advocated "direct action," namely in violent protests, including bombings of symbolic military-industrial targets. Initially, these bombings were aimed solely at property destruction and a great deal of planning went into making sure that no one was actually hurt.

Subsequently, however, the group split into two factions: those who continued to insist on non-violent violence and those who became more historically traditional terrorists.

Naturally, and correctly, the government (primarily the FBI) did not see a great deal of distinction between the two factions and pursued both. Most were either caught or disappeared into obscurity with the end of the Vietnam War, but not before destroying a few targets and killing a number of people, including armored car guards in a hold-up to finance Weathermen operations. Their single most violent event, however, was the destruction of a Greenwich Village townhouse, in which six of their own were killed during the course of their bomb-building activities.

I believe Ayers was in the violent, non-violence faction and both he and his wife went to "ground" and disappeared. Years later, seeking to return to society and tired of running, they turned themselves in. They were arrested, but the government eventually decided not to prosecute, apparently for lack of evidence connecting them with killings.

Ayers eventually joined the Chicago campus of the University of Illinois faculty and both became active in ultra liberal Democratic circles. Ayers joined the board of a trust philanthropy set up by the conservative Republican Walter Annenberg. Obama also served on this board.

Subsequently, Ayers gave an interview, prior to 9/11, in which he stated that roughly: "we should have done more bombing," thus confirming his "non-repentant," attitude. Coincidentally, the interview was publish around the time of 9/11, but the statement was not his response to 9/11.

The Obama campaign pretty much went over the above when the Ayers issue arose during the primaries. To the best of my knowledge no additional sinister information has been added since, even by the McCain campaign, although they insinuate there is more to be learned.

The McCain-Keating association is tied to the Lincoln Savings and Loan failure during the broader Saving and Loan crisis. As head of Lincoln Savings and Loan, Keating violated a rule (amid other illegalities) regarding limitations on Saving and Loan Banks direct ownership investment into real estate projects, as opposed to simply loaning developers the money for such projects. Keating was prosecuted, convicted as a felon and spent time in a Federal prison.

Keating had been one of McCain's early supporters, campaign contributor and personal friend. The two families apparently vacationed together in the Bahamas, with Lincoln Savings and Loan picking up most of the tab. As the Savings and Loan crisis deepened and federal regulators moved in on Lincoln Savings and Loan, Keating turned to five of his friends in the U.S. Senate to attempt to pressure the regulators to delay prosecution until he could "fix things." The regulators declined and proceeded. McCain was one of the five Senators attending the meeting wherein pressure was exercised against the regulators. Subsequently, the five Senators were brought before an Ethics Committee investigation. McCain escaped with a mild reprimand. He has called this event a turning point in his life and has since been Mr. Ethics in Congress.

In retrospect, both Obama and McCain probably regret their associations. But, Ayers was never convicted of a crime, while Keating was. And, at worse, Ayers was deluded into believing that symbolic non human harmful bombings furthered some misguided idealism of benefit to the total society, while Keating robbed thousands of people of their life savings with a purely self-enrichment motivation. Hmmm? On balance, I believe I'd call that one at best "a draw."

I'll turn to economics in my next post.