In sports, when someone changes allegiance from one team to another, especially when that team is suddenly in a position to win a championship, that person is labeled a bandwagoner. In politics when an elected official suddenly changes their position on an issue, then they are labeled a flip-flopper. Presidential candidate Herman Cain has officially garnered this label by now changing his position on the bank bailouts of 2008, when the American people overwhelmingly show they were and are against this policy three years later.
On June 4th in an interview with the National Review, Mr. Cain was asked if he had changed his mind on the bank bailouts and on TARP, when from 2008 until recently in 2011, he had supported the government and fed's use of taxpayer money to save the banks from insolvency.
“You supported the Tarp bailout in 2008 and you’ve had some new considerations about that?” Cain nods yes. “If the banks had trouble again, how would you handle it?” (Response by Herman Cain) “Let em fail. Now let me clarify this TARP first. We were in this financial meltdown that, like I had never seen before in my business career. I don’t think the typical American understood just how dangerous this was, not only for this country, but for the world. The concept of the government providing assistance to the banking system, to help them get their act back together, I did support.” – National Review
While very few men had the foresight to see the financial crisis of 2008 coming (Gerald Celente, Peter Schiff, and Nouriel Roubini), the fact that Mr. Cain had experience from the Federal Reserve side of the house, and should have had an understanding of what the policies, first by Alan Greenspan, and then by Ben Bernanke were doing, should have provided him the ability to see what was coming to the economy years before the crisis. Actions taken in dialogue and discussion leading up to, and during that coming crisis would have been a much more accute barometer of policies Mr. Cain would take as President should a similar crisis come along, versus making an armchair reversal three years after the fact.
For Herman Cain to come out in 2011, right when indicators are leading up to a second, and more devastating liquidity and currency crisis in Europe, the United States, and in Asia, and change course by saying he would let the banks fail if given a second chance, means that his understanding of what really was going on in 2008 and now in 2011, is very limited. Allowing the banks to fail three years ago would have been harsh, and very destructive to the global economy, and to the United States, but the pain would have been nothing compared to what would happen should that same choice be made now, when the same banks have gotten much bigger, and hold a much larger grasp on the overall economy.
A President does not have the luxury of being an armchair quarterback, and changing positions years after the fact on whether we should or should not have bailed out the banks during the 2008 financial crisis. For Herman Cain to make this reversal while he is just a candidate, and not as a President under the pressures of lobbyists, and economists who would push him to do another bailout in a similar situation, shows that Mr. Cain lacks the conviction of his beliefs, and is simply following public opinion during the presidential campaign season.
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