EriktheRed
Eh...
Senator Kerry deserves special blame in this story because he could never be bothered to pay attention to the housing bubble, even when he was running for president in 2004. I recall urging his campaign staffers to pay attention to the bubble. It was like talking to Barney Frank's dining room table.
Of course Robert Rubin was one of Kerry's top economic advisers. Rubin was making tens of millions of dollars at Citigroup whose profits were derived largely from marketing subprime junk loans. So perhaps it is not surprising that Kerry had little interest in learning anything about the housing bubble.
Still it is more than a bit infuriating that Senator Kerry and his colleagues would now be lecturing the country on the need for hard choices. If they could have been bothered to do their damn jobs just a few years ago, we would not be in this situation today. As a result of their failure, tens of millions of workers are unemployed or underemployed. Yet the senators, who are still drawing their paychecks, want the country to sacrifice even more. Maybe now they can be persuaded to learn a little economics.
Dean Baker: John Kerry, The Lazy Senator Who Would Not Learn