Fritz in Fine Form

Interview with former Senator Ernest Hollings (SC)

[excerpt:]

I got elected in 1948. In those days you had to do a good job to get re-elected... Not anymore. I can tell you for that crowd coming into Washington today re-election is the first order of business and that means money. In my last race, I raised $8.5 million which is $30,000 per week, every week for six years... Senator Mike Mansfield used to have a vote on Monday morning to get a quorum for the Senate to do business and would keep us in session until Fridays at 5:00. Not anymore. Mondays and Fridays are gone. We fund-raise. We love filibusters. We get a Republican and a Democrat to hold the floor and the rest go out and fund-raise....

I am as frustrated as any. I speak and write but it has no effect on Larry Summers and Tim Geithner, who sank the trade policy. They want to keep Wall Street and the banks up and Goldman Sachs up. They don't give a damn about jobs or environmental safety or labor in Shanghai. As long as the market's up they think we have a good economy. The market's up my ass. We're broke. Everybody's broke...

It is ridiculous to manage our fiscal affairs in this way. The only way to fix it is to educate the public on what is going on. Rather than a "hue and cry" about Wall Street, we should be talking about how to fix our nation's finances... Summers and Geithner ought to be fired immediately.

Complete interview viewable at InstitutionalRiskAnalytics.com.
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