PrintMarch 5, 2009
McCain Asks 'What Happened?'
According to CNSNews , "Sens. John McCain and Byron Dorgan (D-ND) are asking the Senate to appoint a special committee to investigate the causes of the nation's financial crisis."
It turns out that "Last month, Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) also called for a congressional investigation into what caused the financial bailout - and who in the corporate world should be held accountable." (My emphasis. What a relief to know he's come to no foregone conclusions.)
Now I'm scared. On March 1, I asked "How Did This Happen?" I said:
"While we throw virgins into volcanoes and go into debt at a rate of about one trillion dollars every two months in frantic attempts to save ourselves, shouldn't we also try to figure out what's really going on? ... I don't think this is something we can analyze from home. We need some real forensic accounting ..."
Now I'm scared because both John McCain and Bernie Sanders (Socialist-VT) agree with me. When will I ever learn: be careful what you wish for.
When a committee investigated the Challenger disaster, we were lucky enough to have Richard Feynman on the panel. He found that the O-rings got brittle when cold. While other members droned on about their pet peeves with NASA management, he demonstrated that by putting an O-ring in a glass of ice water in the middle of the hearing.
No Feynman this time. And Li's formula (aka Gaussian copula function) for pricing Credit Default Swaps and Collateralized Debt Obligations doesn't fit in a glass of water so well.
In a normal world, such an investigation would make total sense. But we now live in bizarro world. I'm pretty sure we're going to get nothing but finger pointing and hidden agendas, with no effective corrective action - a Mad Hatter's Tea Party. (We're talking McCain and Sanders. Their only questions will be which corporations were how greedy.)
I had to open my big mouth. I asked how this happened on March 1. By March 4, Senators McCain and Dorgan call for a special committee to find out. I didn't know I had such power. (McCain also selected Sarah Palin after I recommended her. Is he reading American Thinker?)
