About 200 miles south, at Faith Community Church of West Chester, the Rev. Norm Coleman said he likewise plans to vote for the Arizona senator. "I don’t know about Obama’s Christianity, that’s what brings me into question about him."

Religion News (RSS): Obama seeks ’sleeper vote’ of Midwest Methodists

And he gets information on McCain’s Christianity exactly where?  McCain refuses to talk about Christianity,  only a vague generic “faith” which he invariably ends up defining as “faith in America”. Now there’s a strong theological understanding there.  And McCain also doesn’t even seem to attend the church where he is ostensibly a member.  So again,  exactly where do people get the idea that McCain is “more Christian” than one who apparently has no problem talking about church, faith in Jesus Christ,  and the rest?  From the right wing media,  who is just as clueless about faith except in how to manipulate it.  And this audience sucks it all in and accepts it.

I certainly don’t feel any qualification to share any insight into the financial crisis.  I think it is this that has me in a stunned silence,  and I can only shake my head in dismay as I hear the Religious Right air and post and write blame pieces about every possible “them” which is responsible for this mess,  and show that they are in total denial that Bush could have had anything to do with it, or seek to dismiss Bush’s role by obscuring it with a plethora of other “thems” to blame that relegate Bush’s role to just one among many. 

The Presidential campaign holds very little interest for me,  only the end result is what I await,  and the only thing I find encouraging lately is that since the crisis broke,  Obama’s lead in swing states has widened.  I guess this partially explains why the right is so desperate to pin the blame on all “thems” which are not “us”. 

I am not filled with confidence that Obama winning will bring stability,  but that at the very least,  show the door to the parties which stood by,  and even jumped in and aided and abetted the bubble ride that is now crashing and burning.  Bush brought all the corruption out of the woodwork and into government,  inviting them in and appointing many of them to jobs (i.e. “favors”). Ken Lay, Jack Abramoff,  Alberto Gonzalez, and the supreme snake and corrupter and cynical manipulator, Karl Rove (now a political commentator for Fox,  apropos).  These people have to be swept out,  and subsequently investigated and prosecuted to show that such politics has no place if we are to advance as any kind of a self-governing republic. 

Of course,  to top all of this,  my exile from the church continues,  and I feel like I have long since slipped into a similar state of stunned silence about that.  I am not confident in any way at an emotional level.  This matter seems to have taken on an apocalyptic sense for me.  It seems that it would take nothing less than a spiritual tsunami to break down some doors and barriers so that some enclaves of God’s people might call me in.  I must find the place where the lived politic of the alternative city of God is seriously sought by people committed to the alternative community that must exist to allow such a vision to thrive. 

The plan calls for the Treasury Department to buy deeply distressed mortgage-backed securities and other bad debts held by banks and other investors. The money should help troubled lenders make new loans and keep credit lines open. The government would later try to sell the discounted loan packages at the best possible price.

At the insistence of House Republicans, some money would be devoted to a program that would encourage holders of distressed mortgage-backed securities to keep them and buy government insurance to cover defaults.

The legislation would place limits on severance packages for executives of companies that benefit from the rescue plan, but details were sketchy.

Also, the government would receive stock warrants in return for the bailout relief, giving taxpayers a chance to share in financial companies’ future profits.

To help struggling homeowners, the plan requires the government to try renegotiating the bad mortgages it acquires with the aim of lowering borrowers’ monthly payments so they can keep their homes.

The measure’s main elements were proposed a week ago by the Bush administration, with Paulson heading efforts to push it through the Democratic-controlled Congress. Democrats insisted on greater congressional oversight, more taxpayer protections, help for homeowners facing possible foreclosure, and restrictions on executives’ compensation.

To some degree, all those items were added.

Talking Points Memo | Deal reached on financial markets bailout

The bolded points are the key I have been stressing (not that I am in any sense of the word,  an economically knowledgeable guy.  It just seems to me that oversight is important to keep an eye on things.

Obama on ‘Renewing the American Economy’ - New York Times

But the American experiment has worked in large part because we guided the market’s invisible hand with a higher principle. A free market was never meant to be a free license to take whatever you can get, however you can get it. That’s why we’ve put in place rules of the road: to make competition fair and open, and honest. We’ve done this not to stifle but rather to advance prosperity and liberty.

As I said at Nasdaq last September, the core of our economic success is the fundamental truth that each American does better when all Americans do better; that the well-being of American business (OOTC:ARBU) , its capital markets and its American people are aligned. I think that all of us here today would acknowledge that we’ve lost some of that sense of shared prosperity. Now, this loss has not happened by accident. It’s because of decisions made in board rooms, on trading floors and in Washington. Under Republican and Democratic administrations, we’ve failed to guard against practices that all too often rewarded financial manipulation instead of productivity and sound business practice. We let the special interests put their thumbs on the economic scales. The result has been a distorted market that creates bubbles instead of steady, sustainable growth; a market that favors Wall Street over Main Street, but ends up hurting both. Nor is this trend new. The concentrations of economic power and the failures of our political system to protect the American economy and American consumers from its worst excesses have been a staple of our past: most famously in the 1920s, when such excesses ultimately plunged the country into the Great Depression. That is when government stepped in to create a series of regulatory structures, from FDIC to the Glass-Steagall Act, to serve as a corrective, to protect the American people and American business.

Ironically, it was in reaction to the high taxes and some of the outmoded structures of the New Deal that both individuals and institutions in the ’80s and ’90s began pushing for changes to this regulatory structure. But instead of sensible reform that rewarded success and freed the creative forces of the market, too often we’ve excused and even embraced an ethic of greed, corner cutting, insider dealing, things that have always threatened the long-term stability of our economic system. Too often we’ve lost that common stake in each other’s prosperity. Now, let me be clear. The American economy does not stand still and neither should the rules that govern it. The evolution of industries often warrants regulatory reform to foster competition, lower prices or replace outdated oversight structures. Old institutions cannot adequately oversee new practices. Old rules may not fit the roads where our economy is leading. So there were good arguments for changing the rules of the road in the 1990s. Our economy was undergoing a fundamental shift, carried along by the swift currents of technological change and globalization. For the sake of our common prosperity, we needed to adapt to keep markets competitive and fair. Unfortunately, instead of establishing a 21st century regulatory framework, we simply dismantled the old one, aided by a legal but corrupt bargain in which campaign money all too often shaped policy and watered down oversight. In doing so we encouraged a winner take all, anything goes environment that helped foster devastating dislocations in our economy. Deregulation of the telecommunications sector, for example, fostered competition, but also contributed to massive over-investment.

Partial deregulation of the electricity sector enabled (inaudible). Companies like Enron and WorldCom took advantage of the new regulatory environment to push the envelope, pump up earnings, disguise losses and otherwise engage in accounting fraud to make their profits look better, a practice that led investors to question the balance sheets of all companies and severely damaged public trust in capital markets. This was not the invisible hand at work. Instead, it was the hand of industry lobbyists tilting the playing field in Washington as well as an accounting industry that had developed powerful conflicts of interest and a financial sector that had fueled over-investment. A decade later we have deregulated the financial sector and we face another crisis. A regulatory structure set up for banks in the 1930s needed to change, because the nature of business had changed. But by the time the Glass-Steagall Act was repealed in 1999, the $300 million lobbying effort that drove deregulation was more about facilitating mergers than creating an efficient regulatory framework. And since then we’ve overseen 21st century innovation, including the aggressive introduction of new and complex financial instruments like hedge funds and non-bank financial companies, with outdated 20th century regulatory tools. New conflicts of interest recalled the worst excesses of the past, like the outrageous news that we learned just yesterday of KPMG allowing a lender to report profits instead of losses so that both parties could make a quick buck. Not surprisingly, the regulatory environment failed to keep pace. When subprime mortgage lending took a reckless and unsustainable turn, a patchwork of regulators were unable or unwilling to protect the American people. Now, the policies of the Bush administration threw the economy further out of balance. Tax cuts without end for the wealthiest Americans. A trillion dollar war in Iraq that didn’t need to be fought, paid for with deficit spending and borrowing from foreign creditors like China. A complete disdain for pay-as-you-go budgeting, coupled with a generally scornful attitude toward oversight and enforcement, allowed far too many to put short-term gain ahead of long-term consequences. The American economy was bound to suffer a painful correction, and policy-makers found themselves with fewer resources to deal with the consequences. Today those consequences are clear. I see them in every corner of our great country as families face foreclosure and rising costs. I see them in towns across America, where a credit crisis threatens the ability of students to get loans and states can’t finance infrastructure projects. I see them here in Manhattan, where one of our biggest investment banks had to be bailed out and the Fed opened its discount window to a host of new institutions with unprecedented implications that we have yet to appreciate. When all is said and done, losses will be in the many hundreds of billions. What was bad for Main Street turned out to be bad for Wall Street. Pain trickled up.

…This thinking is wrong for the financial sector and it’s wrong for our country. I do not believe the government should stand in the way of innovation or turn back the clock on an older era of regulation. But I do believe that government has a role to play in advancing our common prosperity, by providing stable macroeconomic and financial conditions for sustained growth, by demanding transparency and by ensuring fair competition in the marketplace. Our history should give us confidence that we don’t have to choose between an oppressive government-run economy and a chaotic, unforgiving capitalism. It tells us we can emerge from great economic upheavals stronger, not weaker. But we can only do so if we restore confidence in our markets, only if we rebuild trust between investors and lenders, and only if we renew that common interest between Wall Street and Main street that is the key to our long-term success. Now, as most experts agree, our economy is in a recession. To renew our economy and to ensure that we are not doomed to repeat a cycle of bubble and bust again and again and again, we need to address not only the immediate crisis in the housing market, we also need to create a 21st-century regulatory framework and we need to pursue a bold opportunity agenda for the American people.

Most urgently, we have to confront the housing crisis. After months of inaction, the president spoke here in New York and warned against doing too much. His main proposal, extending tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans, is completely divorced from reality, the reality that people are facing around the country.

We desperately need the kind of mind that can write and deliver this kind of speech.  We don’t need the clueless, condescending drivel that we have gotten from the White House these past 8 years.  Bush OR McCain can touch this speech,  or its thinking.

"Opening up the health insurance market to more vigorous nationwide competition, as we have done over the last decade in banking, would provide more choices of innovative products less burdened by the worst excesses of state-based regulation."

Talking Points Memo | Innovative Products

After all this mess? He STILL believes in the magical powers of “the market” to regulate itself? 

Remember, his top economics advisor is former Sen. Phil Gramm, the legislative architect of the banking and financial services deregulation that led to the current crisis

And his health care proposals are all off-the-rack Heritage Foundation-style initiatives based on the premise that people have too much, not too little insurance. The only thing jarring about the statement is the degree to which it has been overtaken by events as McCain now tries — a la Palin the Earmark-Killer — to rebrand himself as a Mr.. Wall Street oversight and transparency when he’s been pushing deregulation for 25 years.

McCain’s article in THIS MONTH’s issue of Contingencies