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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsBernie Sanders: The solution: The major Wall Street banks must be broken up....
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belzabubba333
(1,237 posts)now we get the governmnt we deserve
midnight
(26,624 posts)An analysis of the House vote on Thursday on the $1.1 trillion federal budget bill — which included a contested provision that will roll back a key rule of the Dodd-Frank law — shows that Democrats who voted in favor of the measure on average received nearly four times as much money from large financial institutions as others who voted “no.”
http://electionlawblog.org/?p=69145
The link below provides a good explanation of the risk that will be made legal again.
"The provision that's about to be repealed requires banks to keep separate a key part of their risky Wall Street speculation so that there's no government insurance for that part of their business. As the New York Times has explained, "the goal was to isolate risky trading and to prevent government bailouts" - because these sorts of risky trades - called ‘derivatives' trades - were "a main culprit in the 2008 financial crisis."
http://enewspf.com/latest-news/latest-national/latest-national-news/57551-senator-warren-calls-on-house-to-strike-repeal-of-dodd-frank-provision-from-government-spending-bill.html
Dustlawyer
(10,521 posts)They must give all of that money because they want the United States to have the best damn government in the world, right? Must just be coincidence that the votes and and the donations worked out that way, freaky huh?
Sarcasm.
calimary
(85,507 posts)Presidential Oath of Office straight. And that's with two months ADVANCED NOTICED and plenty of time to rehearse and memorize a few lines, or AT THE VERY LEAST get it all written down on a couple of pocket cue cards. PLENTY of time.
john roberts formally certified himself as a fucking IDIOT that day. In front of a few million people out there in the cold on that January Washington DC day, and maybe a billion-or-so more people, broadcast around the world, too. Whatever credibility he might have had - for me, that moment just hosed the last of it down the drain.
Just figure it this way: he was nominated by an idiot. So why shouldn't he be one, too?
Dustlawyer
(10,521 posts)
raindaddy
(1,370 posts)if their party became more interested in THEIR welfare than that of Wall Street and global corporations. We deserve much better than what where seeing right now!
belzabubba333
(1,237 posts)to whom do you turn for votes. the left wont vote so why push for a leftist agenda that will only make you loose because the people who vote are interested in and left agenda.
interested in THEIR welfare than that of Wall Street. stop it with the 'both sides are the same' crap. there's only 1 party for raising the minimum wage only 1 party that wants to end the tax break or moving jobs overseas - cons arent intrested in dodd-frank there's only 1 party trying to end discrimination on who you want to marry - there's only 1 party trying to strengthen social security. etc.....
but they cant do it with their voting base sitting out elections
raindaddy
(1,370 posts)In the 60's when Main Street economy was healthy and the Democratic party supported labor, the social safety net and made sure the wealthy paid a fair percentage in income tax the turnout was at 65%. It's declined to 36% for a reason and it's not because people are too lazy, babies, etc. It's because they've become disenchanted with a corrupt system and two parties that have been bought off by global corporations and Wall Street.
Enough people showed up to to put Obama in the White House for two terms and what did we get? Obama stacked his administration with industry insiders, supported Bush tax cuts for the wealthy, along with cuts in Social Security and is in the process of trying to fast track a trade bill that supports the very people who shipped our manufacturing jobs overseas.
belzabubba333
(1,237 posts)
LondonReign2
(5,213 posts)It's a lie you conservadems never get tired of telling. Rush Limbaugh would be proud of you.
Did liberals really stay home and cause the 2010 rout?
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/08/06/1003805/-Did-liberals-really-stay-home-and-cause-the-2010-rout
“So I went back to the exit polls and the picture I see shows nothing like that. If you are a proponent of this claim, I challenge you for empirical proof that some set of activist liberals "took their ball and went home" or whatever metaphor you prefer to make Obama's leftward critics appear childish and immature. Inside, the evidence I found that shows this just ain't so.”
http://blogforarizona.net/do-progressives-even-sit-out-elections-the-numbers-say-no/
“As you can see, Democrats did slightly better with liberals in 2010 than in 2006. Had there really been a collective we’re-sitting-out-the-election-to-spite-Obama pout going on, then there should have been a sharp drop in the liberal participation percentage. Yet notice the 9% in moderate voter participation and the concomitant 10% increase in conservative turnout. Republicans were pumped for that election but their turnout tends to be higher in midterms anyway. Millions of moderate voters either flipped to conservative or stayed home in 2010.”
“As you can see, all the Democratic groups dropped, but the liberal Democrats dropped least of all”
http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/progressive-movement/news/2012/11/08/44348/the-return-of-the-obama-coalition/
Ideology. Liberals were 25 percent of voters in 2012, up from 22 percent in 2008. Since 1992 the percent of liberals among presidential voters has varied in a narrow band between 20 percent and 22 percent, so the figure for this year is quite unusual. Conservatives, at 35 percent, were up one point from the 2008 level, but down a massive 7 points since 2010.
Ideology. Obama received less support in 2012 from all ideology groups, though the drop-offs were not particularly sharp in any group. He received 86 percent support from liberals (89 percent in 2008), 56 percent from moderates (60 percent in 2008), and 17 percent from conservatives (20 percent in 2008).
http://graphics.wsj.com/exit-polls-2014/
Ideology: Liberals were 23% of the vote in 2014, up from 20% in 2010.
http://www.thirdway.org/third-ways-take/the-impact-of-moderate-voters-on-the-2014-midterms
There is no doubt that moderate voters were crucial to the outcome in 2014, and though Democrats won them 53% to 44% overall, it wasn’t sufficient (in fact, they did 2 points worse with moderates than in the 2010 wave).
belzabubba333
(1,237 posts)53.6 percent. the right/left divide is close to even that makes 25% of the left voted in 2010 ( my guess is that 25% is probably lower for dems and highr for the cons. since the left was having a snit-fit that year )
but even splitting it evenly that means 75% OF DEMS SAT IT OUT. what you have are blogs and wsj info on liberals and liberals alone cant carry the party.
i said the left wont vote and 75% of the left sat out in 2010
LondonReign2
(5,213 posts)"The Left" on DU is more often a short hand for liberals, who have been FAR more reliable Democratic voters than the squishy middle
malokvale77
(4,879 posts)will never ever accept that premise, as you have already seen.
I use it as a measure as to who to trust here on DU.
Cheers raindaddy.
raindaddy
(1,370 posts)Cheers back atchya malokvale 77... 
malokvale77
(4,879 posts)to the point of being rotten and maggot infested.
Truly nasty stuff. A must avoid.
Zorra
(27,670 posts)brooklynite
(96,882 posts)Now it's just going to be a symbolic gesture.
Zorra
(27,670 posts)The bill itself is a thing of beauty in its simplicity (and length! only two pages in this age of 1000-page behemoths!). It would give Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner 90 days to compile a list of commercial banks, investment banks, hedge funds and insurance companies that he deems too big to fail, including "any entity that has grown so large that its failure would have a catastrophic effect on the stability of either the financial system or the United States economy without substantial Government assistance." Within one year after the legislation becomes law, the Treasury Department would be required to break up those financial institutions.
snip---
Q: Where do things stand right now with the legislation?
Sen. Sanders: We introduced it a couple of days ago. It's getting a lot of interest and support all over the country. On our website, we have a petition, and we have over 11,000 signatures on it already. There is some interest from some of my colleagues to push forward. And I think--what it does--maybe most importantly, what you are seeing all over the country right now are people from different perspectives who are coming out in support of the concept of breaking these guys up. I mean, you have people--from former Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan himself, who more than anybody else led us to this deregulatory nightmare--beginning to rethink that. You have the government of the United Kingdom actually moving forward to start breaking up some of their large financial institutions. Former Fed Chairman Paul Volcker, former Labor Secretary Robert Reich, FDIC Chair Sheila Bair.... And then just a few days ago John Reed--who did not write the story of the Russian Revolution, I suppose--he was the former CEO of Citigroup, and he apologized. He came forward and he apologized to the American people for his activities in helping to engineer the deregulation effort.....
http://www.sanders.senate.gov/newsroom/must-read/breaking-up-is-hard-to-do
WorseBeforeBetter
(11,441 posts)brooklynite
(96,882 posts)...but since the OP didn't reference any past action, not something I was aware of. (does anyone know if this actually came up for a vote, or did it die in Committee?).
FWIW -still a symbolic action in the new Republican Senate.
Rex
(65,616 posts)was wrong. It will just be another drive by post that was incorrect, like the other thousand before it. 
appalachiablue
(43,493 posts)The momentum for banking reform and breakup even among financial elites post 2008 Burndown was a lost opportunity even though Sanders and others tried, obviously. PBS's 2009 Frontline program, 'The Warning' about Brooksley Born and HBO's 2010 film 'Too Big to Fail' helped expose matters to many. Citibank's Sandy Weill with the 4' plaque in his office about repeal of Glass-Steagall even spoke about restoring the legislation, or partially around 2012. On DU I learned that Bob Rubin and others plans for financial deregulation fait accompli went back to 1995 at least. He made out just in time to avoid most of the big heat. There's a good online clip of Warren explaining the reality of the crisis to a CNBC shill, and a video of Bernie blasting Greenspan in 2003 in Congress. The hope that these two, Sanders and Warren and others provide will strengthen. Another crash is certain at this rate and the effects will be devastating for many. If this is what it takes to get reform as many believe the cost will be very high.
woo me with science
(32,139 posts)woo me with science
(32,139 posts)
Autumn
(47,584 posts)Rec
PowerToThePeople
(9,610 posts)woo me with science
(32,139 posts)
Enthusiast
(50,983 posts)I will write him in if necessary. He is the Real Deal and I support him 100%.
Autumn
(47,584 posts)He will get my vote.
MissDeeds
(7,499 posts)Never again will I hold my nose to vote or vote for the lesser of two evils. I will vote for the absolute best person for the job. Period.
Autumn
(47,584 posts)If the best person can't win because of the lack of support from Democrats and the democratic leadership that's on their heads not mine.
onenote
(45,010 posts)Autumn
(47,584 posts)and any lack of votes lies on their heads. I owe my vote to no one. That one vote is mine and I am in no way obligated to vote for the lesser of two evils. And I will not do so.
onenote
(45,010 posts)But when a greater evil takes over for a lesser evil, the consequences are on the heads of those that could've opposed that result.
Autumn
(47,584 posts)onenote
(45,010 posts)which will grow even greater in evil.
Sorry, but if there are two evil people, one holding a bomb capable of blowing up a building full of people and one with a handgun intent on killing a single person, and I can try to stop one of them, I'm going to try to stop the more evil one -- the one with the bomb. You, on the other hand, apparently will walk away.
Autumn
(47,584 posts)onenote
(45,010 posts)In the meantime, its a zero sum game.
Autumn
(47,584 posts)LondonReign2
(5,213 posts)That's one fucking inspiring campaign slogan
Katashi_itto
(10,175 posts)newfie11
(8,159 posts)I just hope nothing happens to him. There are nasty people who disagree with him.
belzabubba333
(1,237 posts)Autumn
(47,584 posts)The system is broken.
belzabubba333
(1,237 posts)the system is just a convenient excuse. oh well system's broke no point in voting, now where's my remote and my chips
Autumn
(47,584 posts)
Katashi_itto
(10,175 posts)belzabubba333
(1,237 posts)L0oniX
(31,493 posts)Autumn
(47,584 posts)I still remember the day my parents took me to register so I could vote the day after my Birthday. The woman asked me my party affiliation and my Father answered, Democrat of course. 
L0oniX
(31,493 posts)are so Dino-ish or flaky that they aren't worth the value of the paper used for the mail in ballot. This last round our district Dem bailed out because he had a prior commitment ...I shit you not. I suspect he was just a covert repuke op. I voted for a libertarian over a repuke. I had to go to confession after that. Pathetic.
Ilsa
(62,619 posts)If the greater of two evils wins, so be it. I've been voting for the lesser evil for a while now and the greater evil won anyway in 2014.
So f*** it.
Autumn
(47,584 posts)feeds the evil and so it grows. If politicians want to pass legislation for banks, lobbyists, corporations,Wall Street, and the 1%, if they want to allow them to write that very legislation that takes from the people then those politicians can make do with their votes. They will not get my vote. Not going to happen, ever again. I am fucking done.
treestar
(82,383 posts)Now convince the Republicans to vote for it! They are going to be in the majority. But Bernie is a better leader than anyone else, so he can get those Tea Partiers to vote for that. That's what a leader does. Gets other people to do the right thing by persuasion and fighting. I will expect Bernie, especially with Elizabeth's help, to get this bill to pass the Senate in the next Congress.
Autumn
(47,584 posts)
treestar
(82,383 posts)But Bernie and Elizabeth are way better than he is. So I will put trust in them to get this bill passed. Obama would sign it, at least.
Autumn
(47,584 posts)treestar
(82,383 posts)It's Bernie's bill and full of good things Obama can't persuade Senators to vote for. But Bernie and Elizabeth, being much stronger and better leaders, can. So they can help Obama with this. They are surely not waiting to be President themselves, since they put the little guy first. Their powerful leadership will get this through the Senate so Obama can sign it. Why would they sit there with their powerful leading while Obama falters and fails to get the other Senators to vote for it? They have the people at heart, not their egos.
Autumn
(47,584 posts)treestar
(82,383 posts)Getting it passed is another. Why hasn't it passed? What are Bernie's excuses? He is a powerful leader who can get others to do the right thing.
Autumn
(47,584 posts)That would be a guess. Another reason could be some democrats in Congress and the Senate and the White House might have objected to irritating their good friends on Wall Street.
treestar
(82,383 posts)And why can't he twist arms. Senators are powerless? In the Senate?
The POTUS belongs to another branch. Bernie does not have to sit around waiting for the President (who has no power over the Senate internally ) to twist their arms. Why didn't he do it? He is a more powerful fighter than Obama.
How can you call a US Senator lowly? That is a very powerful position. He can introduce bills and get the other Senators to vote on them. The weakest President in the world could then sign them.
Autumn
(47,584 posts)bye
treestar
(82,383 posts)Why didn't Bernie get this bill through the Senate so the weak POTUS could sign it? Why does he sit on his amazing leadership when he doesn't have to?
Silly - am I the one who referred to US Senators as "lowly?"
You talk as if all of the power lies with the President. While at the same time claiming two nonpresidents, Bernie and Elizabeth are more powerful personalities and leaders than he is. At least use the structure you have to produce a bill. Are you saying Senators cannot produce and pass bills on their own?
Look at the House with all their ACA repeals? How did they manage to do that all by themselves?
Rex
(65,616 posts) 
Rex
(65,616 posts)Just a waste of time with the epic time wasters around here. OTOH, notice how mad he got when you said Bernie already was working on it?
So many do the why isn't his legislation passing game but when you look at the whole picture you see a whole lot of legislation from every Senator isn't passing. When you look at the whole picture and all the job functions including working with the house you begin to see his effectiveness.
appalachiablue
(43,493 posts)are truth and That's Powerful.
Zorra
(27,670 posts)critical legislation, and then brought the filibuster back the next day.
If he and other Third Way Democrats wanted to pass a bill of this nature. But realistically, as I'm sure you already know, Third Way Senate Democrats are no more likely to vote to pass a bill to break up banking monopolies than republicans are.
treestar
(82,383 posts)Why not? Why not even the Republicans themselves? I am told EW is a powerful leader type, a real Democrat and a real leader. Seems she could overrun mere Third Way Senators; isn't that what leaders do? Get other people to do the right thing? I know Obama can't and all that, but we are told Elizabeth can. She doesn't have to wait to be President to do it. Would Obama dare veto the bill?
I mean I know there's the House and they are a problem, and don't have leadership like EW and Bernie. But we can deal with that later. The Senate has two marvelous and powerful leaders who have the potential to twist the arms of the other Senators until they vote for that bill. They know the President would sign it, so that should not be a problem. But if he wouldn't, surely they could convince him to do the right thing. Great leaders do that, and B & E are great leaders.
Zorra
(27,670 posts)Rex
(65,616 posts)I don't think half the time they know either!
Autumn
(47,584 posts)at all
Autumn
(47,584 posts) onenote
(45,010 posts)It's not a serious proposal.
Autumn
(47,584 posts)eye opening all of this has been. This past week in particular.
joshcryer
(62,515 posts)Absolutely incredible logic, there! So treester is right, that Sanders couldn't get it passed, because he didn't have Congress to pass it! Incredible! Likewise Warren couldn't break up Citigroup because she didn't have Congress to pass it!
Holy crap we're finding a breakthrough in basic civics!
Apparently if you don't have the votes for something, you can't pass it!
Autumn
(47,584 posts)spinning in different directions josh. Almost like they were poorly planned out .
reading comprehension is a skill. Some have it some don't. And then there are those who just stop reading and reply
joshcryer
(62,515 posts) joshcryer
(62,515 posts)
No fucking shit.
Autumn
(47,584 posts)
I think that I will chose to not respond to you again. Talking to some people is just toxic. joshcryer
(62,515 posts)Yes, I'm "getting it" all right. I just have to read it over and over again to appreciate its utter brilliance. If Congress wanted to pass something they would pass it, since Congress passing things means things get passed.
joshcryer
(62,515 posts)onenote
(45,010 posts)Bernie didn't line up a single co-sponsor. He didn't push it at all.
joshcryer
(62,515 posts)At least now he's on the Budget Committee.
onenote
(45,010 posts)When he introduced the bill in 2009 and again in 2013 it was referred to the Banking Housing and Urban Affairs.
joshcryer
(62,515 posts)onenote
(45,010 posts)One way to get around the referral to a Committee on which he didn't set. I'll give him credit for at least forcing that vote.
Zorra
(27,670 posts)lost everything that they can possibly lose for Democrats for now. In 2016, they will lose the White House as well.
The party has made it quite clear, to anyone with an IQ over 60, that it has been thoroughly infiltrated and co-opted by Wall St. Owned by Wall St.
Young people are going to see the reality that the political system has become a hopeless cause as far as any possibility of necessary significant change is concerned, and will stay home on election day. Left leaning independents will stay home or vote Third Party. Minorities will stay home in despair.
"Why even give a shit anymore?", they'll all say. "We the people have no one representing our interests at all. We voted a huge majority of Democrats into office in 2008, and they sold us out to the highest bidder. So just fuck it all, why bother?".
Lifetime Democratic liberal/progressives will be dispirited. They will listen to the arguments in the above paragraphs, and say to themselves, "They are right. Democrats are offering them nothing but more control by Wall St., and maybe a few social gains. And we're not going to be willing to sacrifice our integrity by lying to them and telling them they are wrong; we can only hope that the possibility of a few social gains will bring them to the polls. Because they're not wrong, they are 100% correct. No one is really representing their interests."
Conservatives will turn out in raging, rabid, unprecedented hordes and vote republican.
Jeb Bush will be our next president. Republicans will remain in control of both houses.
I really, really, wish I was wrong. But I'm not. If by some miracle this post is not accurately prophetic, I will offer myself up for tarring and feathering.
Third Way corporate centrism has murdered the Democratic party. It's dead.
Democratic Party centrism has achieved its goal.
joshcryer
(62,515 posts)Do you think breaking up the banks "hurts" Wall St? It doesn't. The banks are undervalued because they are nearly impossible to manage and can fail again rather easily. Investors are staying away for that reason.
But if you break them up into smaller pieces, they become more valuable. Investors in the banks become enriched.
The idea behind it is that they're beyond regulatory control, that's it, it's not about stopping the rich from being richer, it's about preventing future bailouts from being necessary.
Warren's "idea" to break up the banks is not controversial nor is it something that will stop the rich from getting richer. Though it's framed that way. Importantly, if the government does the breakup, it saves CEO's bonuses (some subsidiaries will go bankrupt, like Citi Holdings).
I'll bookmark your post. For every so called liberal sitting home in 2016 there will be a woman voting against her husbands wishes in the South.
JDPriestly
(57,936 posts)wealthy donors and more in favor of working for the American people, the folks now in the executive could get Congress to vote for some of the legislation that Sanders and Warren are pushing and have been pushing for as long as they have been in Congress.
jtuck004
(15,882 posts)WorseBeforeBetter
(11,441 posts)Last edited Sun Dec 14, 2014, 05:53 PM - Edit history (1)
Minorities Fall Further Behind Whites in Wealth During Economic RecoveryAnother boom/bust/bailout, and they'll get hosed even more.
Cuts to Social Security and Medicare? They'll be hardest hit.
And poor whites *ain't* doing so well, either.
Thinkingabout
(30,058 posts)some terrible decisions, perhaps the rollout oversight did not do very well either, not much oversight since this is when the banks all became larger.
woo me with science
(32,139 posts)A statesman, representative, and fierce agent of change in a sea of corporate sellouts and excuses.
Rex
(65,616 posts)With this crowd here at DU, they would probably just dismiss it like they did Wellstone.
Ichingcarpenter
(36,988 posts)are the big banks..... you break them up then you must deal with the federal reserve by dissolving it and make a national bank
PoliticAverse
(26,366 posts)L0oniX
(31,493 posts)When it gets down to it there is no real free market capitalism anymore.
jmowreader
(52,027 posts)The time to mandate systemic changes was when the banks were on the ropes.
Let's be blunt: Bernie Sanders' "make a list of the too-big-to-fail banks and break them up" idea sucks so hard it'll lift a bowling ball twenty feet. There is no way in Hell the real serious malefactors will ever be broken up, and if they did there's nothing to prevent the broken-up parts from working under the table to sabotage the breakup.
What NEEDS to happen is simpler and more effective: When Glass-Steagall was written, three screens were erected in the financial industry. Back then, you had "commercial banks" - savings accounts, checking accounts and loans; "investment banks" - stocks, bonds, commodities futures and other similar products; and "insurers" which sell insurance. The government wanted completely different companies to sell the three product lines, but since a LOT of banks also sold stocks, the government required separation between the bankers and the brokers. Thanks to our "friends" in the Republican Party, I can go to my bank tomorrow morning, approach my Personal Banker, and ask for a new checking account, a car loan, an auto insurance policy for the new car and a hundred shares of the company that made it - and get everything from the same lady. Which is exactly how it was set up before Black Friday of 1929, and it's one of the reasons there was a Black Friday of 1929. My idea is very easy to comprehend: within 364 days from the enactment of the law requiring it, a financial institution needs to decide whether it is a commercial bank (in this law a credit union will be classified as a commercial bank as a credit union serves the same essential function as a commercial bank), a mortgage bank, a securities dealer or an insurance company, and they must completely divest themselves of the other three lines of business. Further, a divested financial firm may not retain the name of the firm it was divested from..."Wells Fargo Home Mortgage" and "Wells Fargo Securities" must create new names for themselves.
ozone_man
(4,825 posts)to eliminate Glass-Steagall, so let's not blame the Republicans:
President Bill Clinton publicly declared "the Glass–Steagall law is no longer appropriate."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glass%E2%80%93Steagall_Legislation
Bernie Sanders is not saying much that is different than Paul Krugman was in 2009. Krugman has changed his tune now, though there was a time when he did not appear to be a lacky for this administration and Wall Street:
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=a4Tl65kFU96s
Feb. 2 (Bloomberg) -- President Barack Obama shouldn’t hesitate to nationalize the banks that need to be bailed out, Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman said.
“If taxpayers are footing the bill for rescuing the banks, why shouldn’t they get ownership, at least until private buyers can be found?” Krugman wrote in a column in the New York Times published today. “But the Obama administration appears to be tying itself in knots to avoid this outcome.”
His remarks echo those of Nassim Nicholas Taleb and Nouriel Roubini, who said last week that nationalizations will be necessary to bring the U.S. banking system out of insolvency. Obama will require banks to bolster lending in return for government aid, lawmaker Barney Frank said yesterday, stopping short of taking full ownership.
Krugman said the U.S. government’s rescue plan appears to put banking risk with taxpayers when loans go bad while giving the rewards to executives and shareholders when things go well. He cited newspaper reports that Obama’s rescue plan will include government purchases of troubled bank assets and guarantees against losses.
jmowreader
(52,027 posts)My feeling is, Clinton was suffering the effects of torture at the hands of the Republicans. I wonder if they'd have gotten the same bill off his desk in 1993.
But no nevermind, the goal now isn't to point fingers but to make sure it doesn't happen again. We know now that if Glass-Steagall isn't appropriate it's because it isn't strong enough to defeat the threats facing the financial system today. In 1929 there were no derivatives. Jerome Kohlberg wasn't busily inventing the leveraged buyout - four-year-old boys don't do those things. And in fact, since 1933 we had written laws outside Glass that SHOULD have been able to protect the financial system.
I've used a phrase repeatedly throughout the crisis: The problem wasn't what you couldn't do, but what you could. The very easiest example is the Goldman, Sachs Abacus scandal...you know, the one where they hired the nastiest short in the market, John Paulson, to bet against the US mortgage market and caused people to lose billions? Guys, google up the prospectus: they told you that was exactly what would happen. There is a very important phrase in there: synthetic exposure to the mortgage market. Everyone knows mortgages sometimes fail. People have been foreclosed on for nonpayment since forever. Since the risk of default necessarily discourages people from writing mortgages, someone invented an insurance policy for them, the credit default swap. It's not really insurance. There is a law about insurance: one counterparty must own the covered risk, the other must own the money to pay out a certain number of claims. Neither is true with CDS. What GS did was to hire Paulson to pick out a bunch of mortgages to buy naked CDS (the ones where you don't hold the note), securitized them, and offered them to people in a zero-sum game: if the mortgages failed GS won; if they were paid off the outside investors won. Given that scenario - basically, a casino where the dealer has both money in the game and control of the outcome - why the fuck do you think Goldman would have done anything other than they did?
My financial reform bill would have been effective:
A. No firm will be in more than one of the three traditional financial industries.
B. Firms in one industry may not pay finder's fees to anyone in the other two. They can recommend them as a friend, but not be paid by them.
C. No naked derivatives.
D. No multilayered derivatives. The collateralized debt obligation is a "chicken pot pie" derivative: you throw all the old crap no one would eat into a chicken pot pie and hope no one notices what it is, and in the same way you throw derivatives no one will buy into a CDO. The problem is the same in both cases: if something goes bad and makes you sick, was it the three-week-old lima beans or the $3 million in Sears credit card receivables?
E. No government bailouts that let a firm go back to business as usual.
ozone_man
(4,825 posts)who signed the bill into law and said that about Glass-Steagall. The point is that if Glass-Steagall needed to be modernized, it could have been, but they eliminated it and removed those protections, and derivatives were totally unregulated. The economic implosion of 2008 is directly traceable to that act.
Your proposals seem well thought out, and you probably know a lot more than I about derivatives. But, I think it is necessary to break up the big banks, like they did with Ma Bell. Those five banks control now more than they did in 2008, so we are setting ourselves up for another situation like that. And now Obama has caved in to Republicans about derivatives again. You can say (E.) that there will be no government bailouts, but the reality is different. When the next financial disaster hits, there will be a Hank Paulson or a Tim Geitner, or maybe Lloyd Blankfein (he does God's work afterall), who will rush in and save them all at our expense. Better to break them up, so they are no longer too big to fail, no list of rules A. through E., which will have countless interpretations and loopholes. The simplest answer is usually the correct one.
jmowreader
(52,027 posts)Assume we break up the top ten banks - JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Citigroup, Wells Fargo, Bank of New York Mellon Corp, US Bancorp, PNC Financial, Capital One, HSBC and State Street. (This from https://www.snl.com/InteractiveX/Article.aspx?cdid=A-29064271-12846)
Nothing will prevent the people who currently trade derivatives through Citigroup or Wells Fargo from moving their business to Washington Trust, Fifth Third, Regions Bank or another midsize bank...and you've still got the problem, just with different names on the letterhead. Always remember that a bank that is small now can become huge in a very short period of time.
If you want to SOLVE the problem - not just defer catastrophe five years, but end this bullshit once and for all - you have got to split the securities business and the insurance business away from the retail business in every bank in the country.
I can't explain why Clinton signed off on the Glass-Steagall repeal bill. It would be fallacy to even try.
ozone_man
(4,825 posts)Fine if we update it for the 21st century, but that is what we need. It seems that Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders are the ones who are leading the way in that fight. Is there anyone else?
jmowreader
(52,027 posts)IIRC Glass-Steagall allowed a bank to maintain a securities branch if it maintained an internal separation (known as a "screen" or "Chinese Wall"
between the two sides of the firm. I would completely eliminate any way for a firm to do both retail banking and securities trading.
ozone_man
(4,825 posts)I only hear of Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders (votes mostly with Democrats). I'm sure there are plenty of others who will support such legislation, but it takes some leadership to get it to a vote. I don't see Hillary Clinton being at all interested in these kinds of changes.
99Forever
(14,524 posts)How that might happen, short of a violent revolution, is hard to see happening.
maindawg
(1,151 posts)In two years, will there be a violent revolution? Will they arrest thousands of people and kill that many more?
Thats what worries me.
WorseBeforeBetter
(11,441 posts)I remember the heated discussions on DU about breaking up the banks -- a mere 6ish years ago. Should have listened to the emoprogleftyleftists, suckers.
And didn't Obama himself say that we -- as a nation -- can't function with these boom and bust cycles? Bets as to when the next crash/bailout will occur, anyone?
L0oniX
(31,493 posts)WorseBeforeBetter
(11,441 posts)and these collapses will happen more frequently. Fun times... especially as I'm just over a decade away from retirement. Fuckers.
JDPriestly
(57,936 posts)dominated by just a few very, very large corporations.
The dangers in that over-concentration of economic power are many and ominous.
Enthusiast
(50,983 posts)belzabubba333
(1,237 posts)hifiguy
(33,688 posts)since sometime in the Clinton Administration, if not before. Bad for Big Business, dontcha know, and we wouldn't want to bite the corporate hands that feed us now, would we. 
Enthusiast
(50,983 posts)Yay, Bernie!
Initech
(104,312 posts)
jwirr
(39,215 posts)could get a lot easier. Rethugs will not like to be blamed once again for another crash.
I am looking forward to the fight for reform lead by Elizabeth and Bernie. Loves them both.
INdemo
(7,024 posts)I have voted a straight Democratic ticket all my life so if Bernie runs as an independent I will bend bend the rule and I will vote for him.
I have never voted for a Republican and that is why I could never vote for Hillary
L0oniX
(31,493 posts)onenote
(45,010 posts)He re-introduced it in 2013 after Warren took office and was assigned to the Committee to which the bill was referred. But he doesn't have a single co-sponsor.
If Sanders and Warren don't treat this as a serious proposal, why should I?
VanillaRhapsody
(21,115 posts)Words are nice and all.....but even IF Bernie became President....he cannot MAKE shit happen....
Now WE on the other hand....(and specifically the "WE" that decided to "punish Obama" by NOT voting in the Midterms...) could have.....
Thinkingabout
(30,058 posts)From the banking, energy and tobacco industry, WTH. Maybe they at helping him write the bills.
LondonReign2
(5,213 posts)Thinkingabout
(30,058 posts)Go talk to Bernie, guess he decided he wanted to go, the article did not mention anyone was forced.
LondonReign2
(5,213 posts)Might be one of the dumbest arguments I've ever seen anyone try to make. Ever.
We're done here.
Thinkingabout
(30,058 posts)
Odin2005
(53,521 posts)
Jamaal510
(10,893 posts)MissDeeds
(7,499 posts)
onenote
(45,010 posts)I like Bernie, but this bill is and has been nothing but idle posturing on Bernie's part (and, yes, he isn't above such posturing).
The evidence? He introduced this for the first time in 2009. He didn't get a single co-sponsor. Here's a reality: bills rarely if ever pass the Senate if they can't attract any co-sponsors. And it is the task of the Senator that introduces a bill to find co-sponsors.
Bernie introduced the bill again in 2013. Again, he did not line up a single co-sponsor. Not even Elizabeth Warren, who is a member of the Committee to which the bill was referred (as is Sherrod Brown and Jeff Merkley).
If Bernie wants to be viewed as a serious legislator, he needs to do the things that serious legislators do.
joshcryer
(62,515 posts)She's rather moderate in that regard. Just to clarify that.
I agree that this, like the Single Payer bill, is just posturing. Surely Sanders could get some co-sponsers. Wyden would go for it almost certainly.
JonLP24
(29,440 posts)He is actually tied for 3rd for legislation introduced that become law in 2013
https://www.govtrack.us/congress/members/report-cards/2013/senate/bills-enacted
He is also in the top 15% in legislation that makes it out of committee & top 15% in powerful co-sponsors. He is in the lower 50% when it comes to overall cosponsors but attracting cosponsors is far from the only task a Senator does. He is far more effective than most legislators.
onenote
(45,010 posts)Since being first elected to the House in 1991 and then to the Senate in 2006, Bernie has been an original sponsor or co-sponsor of 333 bills. During his roughly fifteen years in the House, exactly one of those bills became law: a post office naming bill.
Since becoming a Senator, he has been an original sponsor or co-sponsor of around 160 bills. Two have become law. One naming another post office. The other is the one substantive legislative proposal that he introduced that became law: The Veterans Compensation Cost of Living Adjustment Act. That bill had 17 co-sponsors: 8 repubs and 9 Democrats.
In other words, Bernie knows what it takes to move legislation to passage. He has tried and not succeeded with other bills he has introduced. But he made no effort to do what is necessary to move his bank break up bill.
(Looking at one year doesn't say much. Yes, he is tied for third -- Two Senators introduced two bills that became law, Bernie and 11 others introduced one, and no one else introduced a bill that became law in 2013. The longer term record is more telling.
https://www.congress.gov/member/bernard-sanders/1010?pageSize=100&q=%7B%22bill-status%22%3A%5B%22law%22%5D%2C%22sponsorship%22%3A%22sponsored%22%2C%22congress%22%3A%22all%22%7D
TheNutcracker
(2,104 posts)
Orsino
(37,428 posts)
stillwaiting
(3,795 posts)Spitfire of ATJ
(32,723 posts)cstanleytech
(27,487 posts)soon as they have spent billions paying off the varies elected officials not to mention the varies federal officials who are supposedly supposed to monitor them.
raouldukelives
(5,178 posts)It is the entire planet and its ability to provide life sustaining ecosystems for every living thing. There are those who are concerned and there are those who support Wall St.
calimary
(85,507 posts)His spirit must rise again. And WE have to do whatever we can to enable that! WE need to have Bernie's back. He already has Elizabeth Warren's. Momentum - let's stir you up!!!!
Tierra_y_Libertad
(50,414 posts)
Moostache
(10,381 posts)There is ZERO chance of breaking up the banks without a massive change in our politics.
The only weapon we have against these megalomaniac banksters is FEAR. They do fear us, the mob. They go to extraordinary lengths to avoid any proper contact with human beings. Private planes and helicopters. Chauffeured limos. Executive elevators that do not stop on anything but their office and their private garage. Private estates with walls and security guards. I would bet that I make more human contact in one morning than Jamie Dimon does in a year.
We need to go to their private estates and protest outside their gates. We need to set up homeless camps on the country roads to their gated compounds. We need to disrupt their privacy and confront them with what they and their policies of greed have wrought.
Dimon. Blankfein. Fuld. Paulson.
These should be the new faces of a 21st century Mount Rushmore, only instead of carved in granite, they should be hung in effigy!
We are dealing with people who no longer are fellow citizens...they are in reality no different to us than King George was to the colonials at the time of the revolution....aloof, distant, non-engaged and perceiving themselves above the fray...
The time is coming when the only option left is armed insurrection. The Tea Party is 99% insane, but there is one thing in them that I do admire....ANGER. They are easily misled and direct that anger at the wrong targets, but at least they have a pulse.
Third way democrats make me puke. They are enablers and co-conspirators and they will go down in history the way the loyalist colonials did in the 18th century...as traitors to their own nation.
Start by rattling the bastards where they live. Boycott their companies and the companies that refuse to divest from them. Use all available non-violent means for as long as we can for sure. but be prepared for the fact that without a credible threat of actually killing them, changes in their behavior are not forthcoming. We either force change upon them or we get what they deem we are collectively worth....which is less and less by the year.
pansypoo53219
(22,055 posts)