Allow me to introduce North Carolina senator Richard Burr. On Monday night, he decided to share with the public “his immediate reaction the week the (financial) crisis began.” And that immediate reaction was panic. In other words, he decided that he didn’t have much faith in the full faith and credit of the U.S. government:
“On Friday night, I called my wife and I said, ‘Brooke, I am not coming home this weekend. I will call you on Monday. Tonight, I want you to go to the ATM machine, and I want you to draw out everything it will let you take,” Burr said, according to the Hendersonville Times-News. “And I want you to tomorrow, and I want you to go Sunday.’ I was convinced on Friday night that if you put a plastic card in an ATM machine the last thing you were going to get was cash.”
Burr has allegedly been a Senator in Congress for 14 years (graduating from the House to the Senate in 2005). His IQ was probably lower than his age even in his rookie year in the House.*
First of all, the gentleman from North Carolina does not seem to have even heard of the concept of FDIC insurance. That’s strange for anyone in this day and age, but especially troubling for a Senator.
Secondly, if he is stupid enough to panic and think he needs to pull all his money out of the bank and stuff it under his mattress, he doesn’t even know how to execute a good panic? He doesn’t have the sense to realize that you don’t have to wait for the ATM to dole out your money to you in little driblets of $200 per day (or whatever)? Is he already so senile that he doesn’t remember a time before ATMs? When you withdrew money from your bank account the old-fashioned way, by marching up to the teller with a check made out to cash? Or maybe he’s forgotten only that tellers don’t operate with the same daily cash limits as ATMs?
These days, when the Senate is charged with making all sorts of complicated decisions that will affect the future of the economy, at least 1% of the votes are in the hands of a guy whose financial acumen doesn’t even stretch to being able to withdraw money from his own bank account. And he’s had this much power over the economy for the last 14 years, him and the likes of him. Which may explain a lot about why we are where we are today.
* Corrected, 7:33 a.m.
*** Update, 6:33 a.m. ***
Always fun to know our Senators, so here’s a nice little factoid:
Burr raised more money from political action committees, $2.8 million, than any other Senate candidate in 2004, primarily from the business community. Of the 100 largest companies in America, at least 72 contributed to Burr. Those included the PACs for such corporations as Wal-Mart, Exxon Mobil, General Motors, Ford, General Electric and ChevronTexaco.