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McCain and the Meltdown
The parallels between the collapse of the savings and loan industry in
the late 1980s and the Wall Street meltdown of today are unmistakable.
Few pieces explain the roots of the S&L debacle--and its relevance
today--better than legendary investigative reporter Robert Sherrill's
breathtaking 1990 expose in The Nation, "S&Ls, Big
Banks and Other Triumphs of Capitalism."
Oct 10, 2008
The parallels between the collapse of the savings and loan industry in
the late 1980s and the Wall Street meltdown of today are unmistakable.
Few pieces explain the roots of the S&L debacle--and its relevance
today--better than legendary investigative reporter Robert Sherrill's
breathtaking 1990 expose in The Nation, "S&Ls, Big
Banks and Other Triumphs of Capitalism."
The section on jailed Lincoln Savings & Loan magnate Charles Keating
is particularly memorable. "If any one hustler was the living symbol of
the underlying rot of the savings and loan industry as created by
Congress and Reagan's biography in the 1980s, it was Charles Keating,"
Sherrill writes.
A constant in both crises is John McCain. McCain and four other senators
(dubbed the Keating Five) intervened to
protect Keating from banking regulators. McCain was later rebuked by the
Senate Ethics Committee for "poor judgment" and embarrassed by the
$112,000 in campaign contributions, trips and gifts he had accepted from
Keating. Cindy McCain and her father were also partners with Keating in
a shopping mall development in Arizona. In his autobiography, McCain
called the Keating episode "the worst mistake of my life."
McCain eventually became a born-again crusader for campaign-finance
reform. But he continued to surround himself with corporate lobbyists
and push for greater deregulation of the finance industry, missing the
greatest lesson from Sherrill's story: "thievery is what unregulated
capitalism is all about."
Sherrill's pathbreaking reporting sheds light on all that was wrong with
the deregulatory politics back then--as well as on what has fed our
current financial crisis. It's worth a second read: "S&Ls, Big
Banks and Other Triumphs of Capitalism," from the November 19, 1990,
issue.
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Ari Berman
Ari Berman is a senior reporter at Mother Jones, covering voting rights. He is the author of Herding Donkeys: The Fight to Rebuild the Democratic Party and Reshape American Politics,"and "Give Us the Ballot: The Modern Struggle for Voting Rights in America." His stories have also appeared in the New York Times, Editor & Publisher and The Guardian, and he is a frequent guest and political commentator on MSNBC, C-Span and NPR.
The parallels between the collapse of the savings and loan industry in
the late 1980s and the Wall Street meltdown of today are unmistakable.
Few pieces explain the roots of the S&L debacle--and its relevance
today--better than legendary investigative reporter Robert Sherrill's
breathtaking 1990 expose in The Nation, "S&Ls, Big
Banks and Other Triumphs of Capitalism."
The section on jailed Lincoln Savings & Loan magnate Charles Keating
is particularly memorable. "If any one hustler was the living symbol of
the underlying rot of the savings and loan industry as created by
Congress and Reagan's biography in the 1980s, it was Charles Keating,"
Sherrill writes.
A constant in both crises is John McCain. McCain and four other senators
(dubbed the Keating Five) intervened to
protect Keating from banking regulators. McCain was later rebuked by the
Senate Ethics Committee for "poor judgment" and embarrassed by the
$112,000 in campaign contributions, trips and gifts he had accepted from
Keating. Cindy McCain and her father were also partners with Keating in
a shopping mall development in Arizona. In his autobiography, McCain
called the Keating episode "the worst mistake of my life."
McCain eventually became a born-again crusader for campaign-finance
reform. But he continued to surround himself with corporate lobbyists
and push for greater deregulation of the finance industry, missing the
greatest lesson from Sherrill's story: "thievery is what unregulated
capitalism is all about."
Sherrill's pathbreaking reporting sheds light on all that was wrong with
the deregulatory politics back then--as well as on what has fed our
current financial crisis. It's worth a second read: "S&Ls, Big
Banks and Other Triumphs of Capitalism," from the November 19, 1990,
issue.
Ari Berman
Ari Berman is a senior reporter at Mother Jones, covering voting rights. He is the author of Herding Donkeys: The Fight to Rebuild the Democratic Party and Reshape American Politics,"and "Give Us the Ballot: The Modern Struggle for Voting Rights in America." His stories have also appeared in the New York Times, Editor & Publisher and The Guardian, and he is a frequent guest and political commentator on MSNBC, C-Span and NPR.
The parallels between the collapse of the savings and loan industry in
the late 1980s and the Wall Street meltdown of today are unmistakable.
Few pieces explain the roots of the S&L debacle--and its relevance
today--better than legendary investigative reporter Robert Sherrill's
breathtaking 1990 expose in The Nation, "S&Ls, Big
Banks and Other Triumphs of Capitalism."
The section on jailed Lincoln Savings & Loan magnate Charles Keating
is particularly memorable. "If any one hustler was the living symbol of
the underlying rot of the savings and loan industry as created by
Congress and Reagan's biography in the 1980s, it was Charles Keating,"
Sherrill writes.
A constant in both crises is John McCain. McCain and four other senators
(dubbed the Keating Five) intervened to
protect Keating from banking regulators. McCain was later rebuked by the
Senate Ethics Committee for "poor judgment" and embarrassed by the
$112,000 in campaign contributions, trips and gifts he had accepted from
Keating. Cindy McCain and her father were also partners with Keating in
a shopping mall development in Arizona. In his autobiography, McCain
called the Keating episode "the worst mistake of my life."
McCain eventually became a born-again crusader for campaign-finance
reform. But he continued to surround himself with corporate lobbyists
and push for greater deregulation of the finance industry, missing the
greatest lesson from Sherrill's story: "thievery is what unregulated
capitalism is all about."
Sherrill's pathbreaking reporting sheds light on all that was wrong with
the deregulatory politics back then--as well as on what has fed our
current financial crisis. It's worth a second read: "S&Ls, Big
Banks and Other Triumphs of Capitalism," from the November 19, 1990,
issue.
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