Financial meltdown

World credit is continuing in crisis mode, prompted by the ongoing financial meltdown in the US. The utter failure of the Bush-Cheney regime and Republicans to adequately regulate and monitor financial institutions has led to the entire financial system coming under threat:

This week, Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy, Merrill Lynch & Co. was sold after it faced bankruptcy, AIG, the world’s largest insurer, is facing a credit downgrade and may yet collapse and the FDIC, which insures accounts in US banks, has only $50 billion in assets to cover $1 trillion in deposits in financial institutions.

Nouriel Roubini, of NYU's Stern School, says America has a "slow-motion run on retail banks" in the midst of what many call the "financial storm of the century" after former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan called this a once-in-a-century financial crisis that’s almost certain to lead to recession.

The situation is so serious that Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson held a mid-afternoon press conference to try and calm people. "The banking system is safe and sound," he declared. He added, "Nothing is more important than the stability and orderliness of our financial markets [and] regulators remain vigilant."

That’s the centre of the storm: The utter failure of Bush-Cheney and the Republicans who controlled Congress until a year ago to exercise even a tiny amount of oversight. If Paulson’s regulators are vigilant now, they certainly weren’t in the first seven years of the Bush-Cheney regime.

What happens in America will affect the entire world: Less credit available in the US means less credit available to other countries, so if the US slides into recession—as now seems probable—the world will probably follow it.

John McCain, who voted with George Bush 90% of the time, claims he’ll somehow “reform” Wall Street. But after all those years in Congress in which he didn’t, how can we believe him? His most famous connection to the banking industry was being part of the infamous “Keating Five” scandal (McCain was cleared by a Senate panel of corruption charges, but condemned for using "poor judgement").

The last thing we need now is more of the same. McCain and the Republicans have shown themselves unwilling or unable to use the existing powers of regulation and oversight, so it’s time for change. We—the world—literally can’t afford four more years of Bush-Cheney-McCain and the Republicans.