Bankruptcy

Presidential Candidates and Short-Term Fixes

By Bob Lawless

In this morning's New York Times is a story about Senator McCain's position on the mortgage crisis. With the story is a graphic comparing the candidates' positions on short-term and long-term fixes to the credit problems in the United States. Long-term fixes I get, but here is what I would like the candidates to say about the short-term fixes:

If I am elected president, I would not take office for another eleven months. Our current financial crisis will look very different by then. In eleven months, we could be dealing with a housing problem where the issue is simply ensuring that large numbers of people have the shelter they need. In eleven months, the credit problems could have spread even further to areas like the credit card industry or the student loan market. In eleven months, we may have seen a string of bank failures that will require us to prop up the banking system. Maybe things will go in another direction. In eleven months we may have had more positive outcomes with confidence on Main Street and Wall Street increasing and credit again flowing.

Different experts will tell you what they think will happen, but nobody knows for sure. As president, you should want someone who will be nimble enough to deal with the situation as it will be presented to them next January. If you want to know what I would do if I were in office today, I'll tell you, but don't think these ideas necessarily will be the best solutions one year from now.

Yeah, I know, not going to get said.

Full post as published by Credit Slips on March 26, 2008 (boomark / email).