Imaginary Recession Claims Another Victim

This evening IndyMac Bankcorp became one of the largest bank failures in American history.   During this past week IndyMac tried to get its act together by refusing to make new loans and laying off half its employees, but a run on the bank by worried customers was the final nail in the coffin.

“It’s the biggest failure in 24 years,” said Chip MacDonald, a banking lawyer at Jones Day in Atlanta. “You haven’t had a lot of failures of that size, yet.”

Perhaps, its California location had something to do with the failure.  Afterall, California is very much a state all about feelings where the type of harmful whining that Phil Gramm warned about is likely to take place.  It is the deregulation of banks like IndyMac by Phil Gramm that have helped contribute to the robust economy we currently have bank failure not wishtanding.  It is the Gramm and McCain team that will show us further prosperity in the years to come.

Gramm Notices Shortage of Gumption Too

The latest whiners to complain about the economy are the airlines.  Today they are blaming “market manipulation” for doubling the cost of airplane fuel over the past year.  What’s wrong with free enterprise? People like these whiny Airlines want to blame everything on the Enron Loophole which they say has increase the cost of oil by 25% – 40%.

The Enron Loophole is the nickname for a provision written into the Commodity Futures Modernization Act (CFMA) of 2000 that was drafted by lobbyists for Enron and inserted in the bill by then Sen. Phil Gramm (R-Texas) that deregulated an aspect of the market Enron sought to exploit with its “Enron On-Line” trading program, the first Internet-based commodities transaction system.

Now, chief financial adviser to John McCain, Phil Gramm puts the fault for the nation’s economic woes squarely where it belongs–on the whiners:

“We have sort of become a nation of whiners,” he said. “You just hear this constant whining, complaining about a loss of competitiveness, America in decline” despite a major export boom that is the primary reason that growth continues in the economy, he said. “We’ve never been more dominant; we’ve never had more natural advantages than we have today,” he said. “We have benefited greatly” from the globalization of the economy in the last 30 years.

I couldn’t have put it better myself.  This is the same sort of can do attitude my dad.  The only recession is the recession caused by people thinking there is a recession.  As Gramm said, “Its a mental recession”.   The export market is doing great and this economy is booming.  All we’re missing is that can do spirit and some gumption.  The future is right around the corner and its glorious.  If the airlines can’t see it then maybe they should refrain from commenting because this economy is soaring like a DC-10.