Goodlatte for, against market regulation?
Brent Finnegan -- October 17th, 2008
Congress is still struggling to wrap their minds around the cause and scope of the economic crisis. Earlier this week, the House Agriculture Committee (of which Rep. Bob Goodlatte is minority leader) held a hearing to shed light on the role of credit default swaps (CDS) in the financial meltdown.
“Today’s hearing was an opportunity for us to learn more about the role credit default swaps play in the marketplace, and how they contributed to the current economic crisis,” said Committee Ranking Member Bob Goodlatte of Virginia.
“It is important for us to understand how our regulators are addressing this issue and what steps should be considered for providing greater transparency with credit default swaps and reducing systemic risk.”
What’s odd to me about Goodlatte’s comments is that just a few weeks ago, after the House initially voted against the bailout package, he said:
…we must eliminate the government-imposed mark-to-market accounting regulations that artificially devalue assets in times of market instability.
Perhaps someone else can shed more light on this. I still don’t understand whether Goodlatte is for or against financial market regulations.
Tags: 2008 election
I can’t speak to Mr. Goodlatte’s thinking on the subject but please tell me why the Ag Committee is holding hearings on this. Some of these people hardly know how to tell which are the boy cows much less understand credit default swaps!
The Ag Committee is holding the hearing because it concerns shutting the barn door after the horses have gotten out.
The committee hopes to leverage the traditional central role of the family farm in America’s emotional image of itself in order to buttress the matrix of transparency necessary to protect free enterprise from the creeping socialism inherent in credit default swaps, which were invented by Al Gore as part of a campaign to centralize the role of the polar bear in energy decisions.
The polar bear is an animal, animals are often raised on farms, and farms also use energy. The connection should be obvious.