Wonk Room » McCain Gets Both Acronym And Purpose Of SIPC Wrong

McCain Gets Both Acronym And Purpose Of SIPC Wrong

By Guest Blogger on Sep 16th, 2008 at 4:00 pm

McCain Gets Both Acronym And Purpose Of SIPC Wrong

Our guest blogger is Andrew Jakabovics, Associate Director for the Economic Mobility Program at the Center for American Progress Action Fund.

Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) demonstrated again today that he was telling the truth about not knowing much about the economy. For a man concerned about protecting the average American from Wall Street greed, he seemed not to know who plays what role.

During a speech today in Tampa, FL, McCain repeatedly referred to the Securities Investor Protection Corporation, the corporation that “return[s] customers’ cash, stock and other securities” if a brokerage goes bankrupt, and is known as the SIPC — as S-P-I-C. Watch it:

It’s possible that McCain misspoke (twice!) in rattling off what he called “the alphabet soup” of regulators, but the error appeared both times in the prepared text released by the campaign. Which raises the question: does he know what he’s talking about or is he just reading what is put in front of him?

Moving past the verbal gaffe, the more serious problem is that John McCain and his advisors don’t seem to know what SIPC is. In today’s speech, he said:

Too many firms on Wall Street have been able to count on casual oversight by regulatory agencies in Washington. And there are so many of those regulators that the responsibility for oversight is scattered, unfocused and ineffective. Among others, we’ve got the SEC, the CFTC, the FDIC, the SPIC and the OCC. But for all their big and impressive sounding names, the fact is they haven’t been doing their job right, or else we wouldn’t have these massive problems on Wall Street. At their worse, they’ve been caught up in Washington turf wars instead of working together to protect investors and the public interests. And we don’t need a dozen federal agencies doing the job badly — we need the best federal agencies to do the job right.

The problem is, SIPC is not a regulator. Don’t take my word for it, though. Check out the SIPC’s own web site, which states “Though created by the Securities Investor Protection Act (15 U.S.C. §78aaa et seq., as amended), SIPC is neither a government agency nor a regulatory authority. It is a nonprofit, membership corporation, funded by its member securities broker-dealers.”

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Comments
7

7 Responses to “McCain Gets Both Acronym And Purpose Of SIPC Wrong”

ghot Says:

Which raises the question: does he know what he’s
talking about or is he just reading what is put in
front of him?

He reads. See him giving his thoughts on wiretap laws.
September 17th, 2008 at 12:02 am
Jim37 Says:

Treasury Secretary Paulsen already proposed what McCain said in the video clip. Paulsen recommended combining the SEC and CFTC, which Congress has talked about for many years, but never take any action

March 31, 2008, hp-896

Treasury Releases Blueprint for Stronger Regulatory Structure

The short-term recommendations include improvements to regulatory coordination and oversight that regulators can make quickly. The Blueprint recommends creating a new federal commission for mortgage origination to protect consumers better. The report also recommends modernizing the President’s Working Group on Financial Markets and clarifying the Federal Reserve’s liquidity provisioning, as Secretary Paulson discussed last week.

Intermediate-term recommendations focus on eliminating some of the duplication in our existing regulatory system, but more importantly they offer ways to modernize the regulatory structure for certain financial services sectors, within the current framework. Recommendations include eliminating the thrift charter, creating an optional federal charter for insurance and unifying oversight for futures and securities

The long-term recommendation is to create an entirely new regulatory structure using an objectives-based approach for optimal regulation. The structure will consist of a market stability regulator, a prudential regulator and a business conduct regulator with a focus on consumer protection.

http://www.ustreas.gov/press/releases/hp896.htm
September 17th, 2008 at 3:20 am
JimboSlice Says:

No I think McCain got his remarks as he intended them. After all isn’t blaming Hispanic Immigrants “spic’s” the fall back of all Republicans. So it turns out that McCain isn’t dumb, he is just racist.
September 17th, 2008 at 5:18 am
JinJin Says:

LOL, I think everyone knows by now that McBush makes it up as he goes along and just thinks all the Sheeple are stoopid and believe his crap. Sadly, that is exactly the xcase with those that support him!

JIff
Ultimate Anonymity
September 17th, 2008 at 5:23 pm
jonathan Says:

Geez.

McCain’s campaign co-chair and ranking economic advisor CREATED this mess. As a senator Phil Gramm co-authored the bill that destroyed financial regulatory protections, allowing Enron, the sub-prime collapse, and the near-bankruptcy of AIG.

How dare senator McCain question the competence of hard-working public servants struggling to reign in rogue financiers and market manipulators when he and his destroyed the most effective tools available for that job.
September 17th, 2008 at 6:09 pm
sweetshrubs Says:

@ ghot

If all McCain does is read, it really makes no difference. In that case his advisers/handlers are the dumb ones. Either way, all the alternatives are bad.

Vote Obama/Biden 2008
September 17th, 2008 at 6:24 pm
thirdparty Says:

Well, Obama referred to AIG as the American Insurance Group. Whoops.
September 18th, 2008 at 1:27 am