John McCain in Miami, winners and losers... by gimleteye

How ironic that John McCain stops for a fundraiser in Miami this afternoon, on the day of a Wall Street financial meltdown. Tough to put good spin or sound bites from what is shaking the world of finance: last week Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, this week Lehman and Merrill Lynch and AIG.

But it is appropriate for Senator McCain to be here, on this day of all days.

Miami and its out-of-control building and development is the epicenter of the world-wide credit crisis. Yes, there are many other places in the nation where banks are failing and housing markets plummeting: but Miami is where the political model for zoning and permitting reckless development became the rule and the ratio geared to Wall Street finance.

The flip side of financial derivatives, raining wealth on bond dealers, originators, and the banking chain, is putting that money to use without regulation or restriction. That's what happened in Florida. Oh, sure there are regulations.

Here's what John McCain said today in Jacksonville: "We will never put America in this position again,'' McCain, the Republican nominee, told supporters in Jacksonville, Florida. He vowed to "clean up Wall Street'' and "replace the outdated, patchwork quilt of regulatory oversight.'' But wait: who gave Charles Keating wings in the Savings and Loan Scandal? Who was in the Senate and allowed the banking industry to prevail in the outdated patchwork of regulations? Whose key financial advisor, Phil Gramm, paved the way to erase banking firewalls that allowed speculation to run rampant through the financial system? John McCain.

Lots of the perpetrators on the flip side of the coin, the flim-flam men and women and scam artists who run the county and city commissions with the campaign donations tied to zoning in wetlands or outside the Urban Development Boundary, will be writing big checks at the Hotel Intercontinental today. It's a virtuous circle.

The builders and developers and bankers who pushed growth at any cost in Florida are on McCain's team. The Krome Gold Ranch limited partners, the Ed Eastons pushing out the Urban Development Boundary, the lobbyists, the traffic engineers and planners, the big engineering companies: these are just a few examples of special interests who pushed the Bush era forward-- Jeb in Tallahassee, and now consultant to Lehman Brothers-- and reaped vast wealth exploiting the public interest.

Here is the rub: if you made millions, tens of millions or hundreds of millions in Miami's real estate boom, giving back half still leaves you rich. Giving John McCain the maximum $2300 or the vicious 527's unlimited money is just like backing up your computer: you have to do it.

But people whose net worth is wrapped up in a home now worth twenty, thirty, or forty percent less than they bought as the housing bubble rose; those folks are a whole new class of American dispossessed. I doubt any of them will be at the McCain fundraiser this afternoon.

We are experiencing a systematic failure of a mountain of debt that was permitted because federal banking and investment regulations could gain no traction against well-heeled lobbyists and financiers, mostly related to real estate development in the nation's fastest growing regions-- places like Miami-- who claimed that "risk" analyses and the free market could protect consumers and investors while doing everything in their power-- mostly in the shadows-- to make sure that regulations and curbs against speculation didn't work.

"We just build what the market wants", they said-- blasting their critics as "elitist". It is quite a reversal and quite a fantasy to believe that the political party that wrecked the US economy is now "reformed" The party is about as reformed as the donors at the Intercontinental, writing John McCain checks.

Make no mistake, we are in the middle of an unparalleled economic crisis. Miami's "sand-in-their-shoes" developers and lawyers-- in particular, the abject lobbyists for suburban sprawl-- will be writing checks to John McCain this afternoon. I think, in their hearts, they know what a disaster they pushed along. But even with the cratering of financial assets, it is better to be rich than poor. Better to be a winner, than a loser; at least until November 4th.




photo: Anchorage protest against Sarah Palin on Sept 13