McCain has a Plan!

John McCain took his strongest economic stand yet in the midst of our tumbling markets. Calling for the firing of SEC Chairman Christopher Cox for “betray[ing] the public’s trust.” McCain said the SEC allowed abusive short-selling on company stocks turning “our markets into a casino.” According to the WSJ:

“Short-sellers have been blamed for piling into commercial and investment bank stocks and driving stock prices lower. Investment banks have been suffering from heavy write-offs from subprime mortgage debt and their falling stock prices have made it harder for them to raise money.”

Furthermore, McCain contends that Cox’s elimination of a depression-era trading rule, the uptick, designed to prevent short-selling by tying short-sells to previous higher stock price bid.

So what’s McCain’s plan? He wants to create a new agency, the Mortgage and Financial Institutions Trust,

“to work with the private sector and regulators to identify institutions that are weak and take remedies to strengthen them before they become insolvent.”

Investors seemed pleased with the prospect of this form of federal intervention.

We shall see. What we don’t need is massive regulation or more government bailouts!

More: McCain links Obama to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac! Speaking at a rally in Iowa today, McCain lambasted Obama (h/t: Webloggin):

“Senator Obama talks a tough game on the financial markets but the facts tell a different story. He took more money from Fannie and Freddie than any Senator but the Democratic chairman of the committee that regulates them. He put Fannie Mae’s CEO who helped create this disaster in charge of finding his Vice President. Fannie’s former General Counsel is a senior adviser to his campaign. Whose side do you think he is on? When I pushed legislation to reform Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, Senator Obama was silent. He didn’t lift a hand to avert this crisis. While the leaders of Fannie and Freddie were lining the pockets of his campaign, they were sowing the seeds of the financial crisis we see today and enriching themselves with millions of dollars in payments. That’s not change, that’s what’s broken in Washington.”

Interesting indeed!

STILL MORE: Hot Air: here and here; Flopping Aces <– WOW!