Tuesday, September 30, 2008

Roll Call USA: Bi-Partisan Ballot Fright vs Leadership


My Direct Democracy has a concise history of that bail out vote linking to the Roll Call. What a surprise! Those in close races of either party tended to vote the bill down. Surely it would be possible to structure something like this with the emphasis on protecting savers, possibly pension fund and small time investors, protecting the taxpayer, but allowing the undeserving management, the industry as a whole and speculative investors to take the rap? Something like the B&B rescue or Northern Rock? Hat tip: Mark Pack.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

It's a classic example of a pre-election prisoner's dilemma, Chris. Except it's not the politicians who end up going to jail...

Chris Paul said...

Not often enough anyway! And the bankers too will escape, as usual.

We want leadership from our politicians not naked populism. GW Bush is attempting to show some for once in his lying, cheating life.

Whatever electorate you were facing if the rescue concentrated on Main Street as e.g. Northern Rock and B&B have done and being tight with shareholders, key workers etc then you would be popular enough at the grass roots.

The problem then would come from your funders NOT the voters in general. So, I'd argue, the MyDD analysis may be slightly off beam. It's arguably kowtowing to capital not direct democracy.