It’s Not Enough To Simply Vote for the Best Candidate

One of the things I find maddening about people who proudly proclaim themselves to be political “independents” is that they don’t seem to recognize that voting independently of a particular political party – and choosing, instead, to vote for “the best candidate” – doesn’t make any sense in a world in which at least one party (the Republicans) marches in total lockstep.

Don’t get me wrong . . . I think it is a shame that partisan politics now effective precludes simply voting for whichever candidate you think is the best choice individually for the office.  I wish we could go back to a time when that was desirable.  But the degree of party discipline exercised by the GOP and the fact that they act so monolithically (if they didn’t, they wouldn’t be able to impose as many filibusters in the Senate as they do) means that sane people simply cannot vote for anyone running as a Republican even if they personally would prefer that candidate to win.

Banks: Our Private Profit Trumps Your Public Interest

It isn’t often that I read an article about the political battles being fought over financial regulation and get reminded of an old girlfriend, but that is exactly what happened yesterday when I read James Suroweicki’s piece in The New Yorker about how banks are flexing their political muscle to derail the creation of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.  The CFPB is charged with bringing more transparency to consumer financial markets so that people looking to borrow money -- whether by accepting a credit card, taking out a home loan or otherwise -- have a very clear understanding of what the real cost of that new debt will be.

In his article, Suroweicki points out that the creation of the CFPB actually will benefit the banking industry, and argues that the banks are therefore acting counter to their own interests by opposing the creation of this agency.  

Unfortunately, I think Suroweicki is missing something important here.  I am sure that the banks fighting so ferociously against the CFPB understand quite well that its creation really will benefit the banking industry, but they also are profoundly aware that it will do so at the expense of the banks themselves.  These two interests are not identical, and Suroweicki misses part of the story by assuming that they are.