« Canadians Save the U.S. Financials? | Main | Subprime Spam Du Jour: Faith-Based Warnings »

Latest Stories

• Excel Wankers and Recession Averages
• Sorry, New York is Closed. Check Back Later.
• Catching Falling 2009 Earnings Estimate Knife
• Survivorship Bias in Global Markets
• Talking Positions on a Lazy-ish Retirement Portfolio

September 10, 2008

Doesn't the President Need to Get on TV?

The more I listen to the non-business media, the more I think the President needs to get on TV and explain what's happening in financial markets. It would be nice if he took some responsibility too, but I'll settle for President Bush on primetime TV explaining to the average person three things:

1. Why the Freddie/Fannie bailout was necessary
2. Why other interventions have happened (and may still happen before it's over)
3. Why, after it's all over, nothing like this will ever happen again

My concern, in part, is that this succession of one-time interventions clearly has vanishingly small electoral support, and shrinking. If that voter support continues to fall, aided and abetted by a media that is focusing on the raw meat of bailouts, payments to executives, etc., we could rapidly find ourselves in future not doing unpleasant things that we should.

I'll admit to another motive too. I also want to take away cover from politicians and others looking to re-engineer FRE/FNM and have them continue on in another guise under the next administration. Properly done, we can explain now why that would be a bad idea, and dimish the power of any populist rhetoric -- homeownership is the American dream! (100x) -- a Barney Frank would have in subsidizing mortgages in a post-election Democrat-controlled Congress.

Agree/disagree? This is an epochal financial crisis and we have heard nothing from the people spending billions in taxpayers' money. And that is exceedingly dangerous.

[Update] I'll concede that Bush is a terrible speaker and his understanding of this issue is questionable. That didn't stop him from talking him about Iraq, however, and shouldn't stop him here. Color me naive, but I believe that the appearance of accountability is important, even if elections are only two months away. Tacitly implying that voters shouldn't worry their pretty little heads is a mistake.

Sphere It   |   Digg it   |   Bookmark it   |   Stumble it   |   Facebook it