i'm sure Anonymous will be here any moment to explain why you are a hopeless partisan, Ezra.

btw, how DARE YOU use John McCain's words against him? Reading stuff and then telling people about that stuff is elitist!

btw 2, don't you know anything McCain said after he was released from captivity through, um, yesterday is unfair to point out?

only the Vietnam War/POW McCain and the McCain of This Very Moment is the one that matters, and will surely be a better president than Obama.

The specific reform that McCain is referencing here is the Reigle-Neal Act. Some questions: Do you think that act led to our current financial crisis, and if so, why do you think that and by what mechanism did the act produce the result?

If you never thought about the banking system until the day before yesterday, you should be careful spouting off about it. Again, it damages your brand.

Wow that quote is poison for McCain. That is bad, bad news.

This sucker needs to get chain-emailed (with link to the original article) to every man, women, and child on the internet. I don't think it is possible to write a more damaging sentence in fewer words.

Thomas, I am pretty sure you're an idiot. But do tell -- when was the first time you read a 10-K by any financial-sector company? When was the last? When did you get your [CFA|CPA|other financial-industry professional designation]? And if the answer to all questions is (as I bet dollars to donuts) is 'never', when will you reappear here to apologize to those of us who can answer each question in a different way?

On-topic, what baffles me is the utter absence in the campaign of the phrase "Keating Five." McCain's career is tailor-made for attack as slavish lackey to industry interests. Whatever is keeping the Obama campaign's surrogates, I don't care: the absence of that phrase and general line of attack is a stunning indictment of its competence. It makes me worry that in office an Obama administration would be equally inept at taking other obvious and effective actions. I mean -- what gives?

Why don't you ignore obsecure links to the current crisis and focus on moe direct ones;

"Barack Obama has slammed the banking industry for its predatory use of sub-prime mortgages, which are pushing millions of American homeowners toward foreclosure.

But his campaign's Finance Chair, Penny Pritzker, owned a failed Chicago thrift that helped pioneer sub-prime financial instruments and faced accusations of abuse."

"“The [sub-prime] financial engineering that created the Wall Street meltdown was developed by the Pritzkers and Ernst and Young, working with Merrill Lynch to sell bonds securitized by sub-prime mortgages,” Timothy J. Anderson, a whistleblower on financial and bank fraud, told me in an interview."

This is exactly who we need making decisions.

Over what period of time has the stock market not beat inflation? Over anything more then a couple year period at any time in history we would be better off with our money in the stock market then SS Trust fund.

Do they grow you lackwits on trees somewhere?

Association with someone who chaired a failed bank seven years before it collapsed doesn't come close to Mr. Keating Five. And if you think Penny Pritzker developed financial engineering of any sort, then I guess "financial engineering" now means "having my rich daddy pay for stuff."

As for OASDI and equity investment, it eludes me how you Randian supermen get all weak in the knees for nationalization, but I'll indulge you. Nationalizing the means of production fits your world view how exactly?

If McCain wins and this represents the quality of his supporters, we're fucked. Eight years of fifth-grade intellects was bad enough. These I peg in third grade.

It's "dyed-in-the-wool." You know, like "dye."

Nate has faced multiple accusations of perjury, high treason, and being a paedophile. I demand McCain denounce him!

WCW, answers: 2001, 2007, and no industry designation.

Now, would you answer the questions that I asked Ezra: What's wrong with Riegle-Neal, the act that gave us nationwide competition in banking? (If you need partisan context to answer, then note that Riegle-Neal was passed by a Democratic Congress and signed by President Clinton.)

1993, a few days ago, and 2000 for me (a CFA, not that it matters).

I tag you as a troll because there is no connection between that act and this McCain piece. Facially, the quote refers to the past decade, and Riegle-Neal was 1994. Naturally, there are no explicit or implicit references to the act in the article.

Mr. Keating Five is no Clinton-era technocrat (not that that's such a great thing, but at least that crew were competent). Chanting "Riegle-NEal" isn't going to make it so.