The wheels are coming off Senator Chris Dodd’s bandwagon.

Connecticut’s senior Senator and the Chairman of the Senate Banking Committee seems to be in the same sort of “downward spiral” that the economy is in – and the bad news just keeps on coming.

Faced with a deepening economic crisis precipitated by the home mortgage collapse – the lending of billions of dollars to people who had no reasonable expectation of being able to pay it back – the brilliant minds of the Obama Administration, in concert with elected leaders in the U.S. House and Senate (Dodd among them), have chosen to address the crisis by borrowing billions of dollars that they have no reasonable expectation of ever being able to pay back.

The end result of this policy has been infinitely predictable – and the first signs of transpiration emerged today.  The picture headline on the Drudge Report said it all – kids jumping up and down with glee while hot air balloons rise and float off into the Heavens, carrying them to an unknown future. 

Wholesale inflation took its biggest jump upward in six months, and renewed many fears of the perilous effects of “monetizing debt”, as turning on the money printing presses is euphemistically characterized.   But Dodd and his coterie of allies are unbowed. 

In the meantime, the Connecticut Post reported today that Sir R. Allen Stanford, of Texas, Florida, Switzerland, the U.S.Virgin Islands, and Antigua (where he is a knight), is at the center of an alleged $8 billion Ponzi scheme, and that one of the U.S. politicians that he lavished most generously was none other than Senator Dodd.  He received $27,500.00 in contributions from Sir Allen.

The revelation is just another peg in Senator Dodd’s sinking battleship.  Time magazine recently compiled a list of the 25 people to blame for the financial crisis – and they put Angelo Mozilo, Countrywide Financial’s CEO at #3.  If the name strikes you as familiar to the Dodd saga, that’s because it is.  It was because Dodd was dubbed an “FOA” – Friend of Angelo – that our senior Senator received those two sweetheart mortgage deals that saved him roughly $70,000.

The Waterbury Republican-American weighed in with an editorial “Dodd Man Out” regarding the fact that Mr. Dodd’s name doesn’t appear on the list along with his friend Angelo.  They asked this pointed question: “How is it possible for one person to be this wrong this often, and cause so much financial hardship and havoc, and still not make Time’s top 25?”

Connecticut voters will be asked next year whether to extend Mr. Dodd’s contract for an additional six years.  Hopefully the reality of what has gone on here will begin to punch into the broader public consciousness.

Sources:

Crutsinger, Martin.  “Wholesale inflation takes biggest jump in 6 months”.  AP.  February 19, 2009.  http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Wholesale-inflation-takes-apf-14410311.html

Editorial, “Dodd Man Out” Waterbury Republican-American.  February 18, 2009.  http://www.rep-am.com/articles/2009/02/18/opinion/398482.txt

“25 People to Blame for the Financial Crisis” Time Magazine.  Accessed February 19, 2009.  http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1877351_1877350_1877339,00.html

Urban, Peter. “Dodd on the Hot Seat Again”.  Connecticut Post.  2/19/2009.  http://www.connpost.com/ci_11733945