Another Bad Day for Senator McCain
As I noted in previous posts, last week was really bad for Senator John McCain, BUT that appears to be nothing compared to the way that this week has started off.
Former Texas Senator and presidential hopeful, Phil Gramm is a lobbyist for UBS as well as an economic adviser under McCain. Gramm is credited with the deregulation “reform” which may have led to the current subprime mortgage crisis.
TPM:
Below I noted MSNBC’s story tonight about how former Senator Phil Gramm (McCain’s economics advisor) was advising him on his subprime mortgage bailout policy while Gramm was also a registered lobbyist for the Swiss bank UBS.
Now, it’s clear from the report that UBS had some exposure on the subprime front. But I wasn’t aware of the true extent of it. TPM Reader KB sends in articles Businessweek and Forbes that show just how big a player UBS was. Forbes says that UBS is among the banks hit worst by the global credit crisis, particularly in their direct exposure to the US subprime market. According to Forbes, UBS has some $37 billion in write-downs on assets tied to bad U.S. mortgages. In other words, the bank’s very life appears to be on the line with regards to how the U.S. government chooses to handle the matter.
As MSNBC reported, UBS deregistered Gramm as a lobbyist for the company on April 18th, though he continues to serve as a vice chairman of the bank. But that was fully a month after McCain’s speech outlining his own approach to the crisis.
