McCain declared Thursday that the Securities and Exchange Commission had turned “our markets into a casino”.

This begs the question — since McCain has long been a proponent of “privatizing” Social Security by investing its funds in the financial markets, doesn’t that mean that he wanted to bet your retirement on a casino? If McCain had had his way, the current financial meltdown on Wall Street could have cost you the money you had saved all your life for your retirement. Wouldn’t that have been lovely?

In addition, if all that money from Social Security had been invested in financial markets, the current bubble (and subsequent burst) would have been much bigger. So not only could you have lost all your saved money, but the economic melt-down could have been much worse. It’s a lose-lose situation — except, of course, for those investment bank CEO’s who always seem to get their fat bonuses and golden parachutes (and the lobbyists who used to work for them, and now work for McCain).

What makes this even more ironic is that McCain is no stranger to casinos, having admitted spending much of his younger days drinking and gambling. He still does. While in Las Vegas during the Republican primary, his aides had to stop him from playing craps.