Bill Clinton defends repeal of Glass-Steagall

[Freddie Stubbs]

Source: The Hill

Former President Bill Clinton has defended his decision to repeal Glass-Steagall, the Depression-era banking regulation that splits large financial institutions and is championed by liberals.

"Politicians — particularly now, in the aftermath of this crash — fear that anything they do will be held against them later if anything bad happens," Clinton told Inc. in an interview. "Look at all the grief I got for signing the bill that ended Glass-Steagall. There's not a single, solitary example that it had anything to do with the financial crash.”


Democratic presidential candidates Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and former Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley have backed reinstating the policy, which would require big banks to divide their commercial and investment practices.

Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton declined to take a position on the policy while campaigning in South Carolina last month.

Read more: http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/250838-bill-clinton-defends-repeal-of-glass-steagall

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

1. The Big Lie.

"Look at all the grief I got for signing the bill that ended Glass-Steagall. There's not a single, solitary example that it had anything to do with the financial crash.”

Other than the fact that it had EVERYTHING to do with it, by enabling exactly the sort of activity that caused the crash.

[Wounded Bear]

5. IIRC, it was what caused the Crash in '29, too..

the use of savings and checking acct funds to provide seed money for high risk investments. If the investments don't pan out, and high yield always mean high risk, the cash melts, too. Savings and checking funds are lost. Consumer gets a sorry about that letter and is screwed. FICA and Glass-Steagall were the two pillars of defense against those practices, FICA being protection for consumers and G-S as prevention of future abuses. They don't really work individually. When G-S was lifted, the banks were allowed to self immolate and the taxpayers were left holding the bag.

[Gregorian]

92. Thanks. I didn't know that bit about the depression.

There's only so much one can learn in life, unless they're Stephen Colbert. But this is such a big subject, it's worth learning. Money.

I'm liking Marxian economics a lot.

[CanadaexPat]

135. The history of the American economy is

punctuated by crashes - the Great Depression was just one in a long line, all caused by speculative bubbles bursting and all credit disappearing. Glass-Steagall finally dealt with that.

[snagglepuss]

172. "Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever."

- Mahatma Gandhi

[Warpy]

140. That's certainly a big part of it

The other part was issuing the risky margin loans without the money to back them up so people could buy into that "can't lose" stock market, along with playing that market, themselves. That was the "risky investment" of the day and when it went bust, it took everything with it.

Glass-Steagall always seemed like a no brainer policy to me, which means that Clinton still has no brains when it comes to banking, especially banking history.

We will likely have to suffer the Big One before we get the very sensible policy back, along with strict regulation of derivatives and other reforms the industry desperately needs but is fighting tooth and nail while their cash flow is positive.

The repeal of Glass-Steagall with the inevitable consequences will be Clinton's legacy. People will forget all about the impeachment. They will remember the coming depression.

[snagglepuss]

173. I remember reading back then how people were blown away

by his intelligence. He can't be super duper intelligent if he never understood something so straight forward. Either his intelligence is over-rated or he is in denial about his actions leading to such a disaster.

[Warpy]

174. He's not stupid

but the smartest man in the world can only know so much before he has to start to rely on what the experts tell him and the "experts" were banksters telling him how abandoning Glass-Steagall was going to make everybody richer.

Well, it did make some people unimaginably rich while beggaring everybody else and putting the whole system at extreme risk, along with depositors who can now have their money counted as bank assets, not their assets.

[snagglepuss]

179. Intelligence is not about knowing everything it's about discernment.

With regard to banking it doesn't take a genius to know that deregulating banking is a catastrophe waiting to happen given what happened in the 30s. How is it that Canadian leaders never went that route? How could their advisers be so on the mark and Clinton's advisers so wrong?

[Hydra]

176. He's not stupid- he managed ot get himself inducted into the 1% and adopted by the Bush Family

That's no mean accomplishment- but it requires a lot of legwork in destroying the protections for the ordinary people, and he absolutely excelled at that.

Genius? Absolutely. He used it to sell his soul.

[IthinkThereforeIAM]

8. And let's not minimize Foreclosure Phil Gramm...

... his late night hijinx at the Senate had much to do with the crash(s), too. Here is just one example:

"Gramm's long been a handmaiden to Big Finance. In the 1990s, as chairman of the Senate banking committee, he routinely turned down Securities and Exchange Commission chairman Arthur Levitt's requests for more money to police Wall Street; during this period, the SEC's workload shot up 80 percent, but its staff grew only 20 percent. Gramm also opposed an SEC rule that would have prohibited accounting firms from getting too close to the companies they audited—at one point, according to Levitt's memoir, he warned the SEC chairman that if the commission adopted the rule, its funding would be cut. And in 1999, Gramm pushed through a historic banking deregulation bill that decimated Depression-era firewalls between commercial banks, investment banks, insurance companies, and securities firms—setting off a wave of merger mania."

[link:http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2008/05/foreclosure-phil|

[virtualobserver]

65. Gramm is the worst....the great defender of exploited CEO's

He has no shame.

[roguevalley]

20. Bill Clinton is an ass hole. I lost friendships over him. What a total lying tool.

[hifiguy]

78. It took some years to see just what an immense amount of damage

Clinton did to this country. He's not in Chimp/Cheney territory, but he's in the top ten. I honestly think he did far more ill to this country than Bush the First did in his term.

NAFTA, banking deregulation, welfare "reform." and the Telecom Act have all proved to be weapons of mass destruction turned on the people of this country.

Thanks, Clinton. Thanks a fucking bunch. But you got your massive delayed payday in the last 15 years so I guess the rest of us can just lump it. Worst Democratic president of the 20th century.

[Enthusiast]

99. +100%!

[dgibby]

154. It's no wonder Poppy Bush

is so crazy about him. Best son he ever had. The other 3 are an embarrassment.

[99th_Monkey]

155. Your list omits Bill's "tough on crime" crusade to flood prisons with African Americans

mostly for petty non-violent crimes.

[hifiguy]

158. Another one for the long list of Clinton-backed or -sponsored disasters.

The Commodity Futures Trading modernization is another one, which with the repeal of Glass-Steagall made 2008 not only possible but inevitable.

And Poppy and Chimpy both look on the Clintons as extended family. Little Boots thinks of HRH as his sister-in-law. What the purple fuck more needs to be said about the Clintons than THAT?

[reddread]

184. MFN for China n/t

[restorefreedom]

27. its bizarro speak

the republicans are kings and queens of this kind of doubletalk. but corporate centrist dems and dinos have gotten good at it, too

oligarchy knows no party lines. We need real reform. We need Bernie

[truedelphi]

107. Totally agree. And i wonder how much bigger that international

"Charity" that Bill gets to run will expand in return for his continuing to spread the Big Lies.

[swilton]

52. 'There is not a single, solitary, example that

it had anything to do with the financial crash'....

I have to agree with you Bill - not a SINGLE, SOLITARY, example but....

MULTIPLE, COMMON examples that it had EVERYTHING to do with the financial crash.

[RoccoR5955]

66. Once a BS artist

always a bullshit artist!

[haikugal]

73. I did NOT have SEX with THAT woman...finger pointed for emphasis...gotta love the big dog...blech

[Enthusiast]

98. +100%!

[dgibby]

153. Depends on what the definition of "is" is.

Glass-Stegall, NAFTA, I did not have sex with that woman. Big Dawg just keeps on diggin'.

[Scuba]

168. /\_/\_This_/\_/\

[peacebird]

2. Bull pucky. The repeal of Glass Steagall caused the crash. Do we really need another Clinton to

Finish the job of destroying the middle class?

[hifiguy]

79. That's why she's running.

To finish the job. That and her massive ego and feeling of absolute entitlement to the office.

[Dawgs]

3. I've got an example. How about the financial collapse of 2008.

I think that's a pretty good one.

[Jack Rabbit]

4. Bill has much to defend about his administration

Unfortunately, signing Phil Gramm's financial reform measures into law, welfare deform and NAFTA are all indefensible. His wife knows it. That's why she won't take a position on it rather than try to defend it.

[NRaleighLiberal]

6. Once people become "haves" - especially excess "haves" - they conveniently ignore the "have nots"

part of the flaw in human beings. From what I've seen, very, very few are immune. Politicians are perhaps among the worst offenders.

[snagglepuss]

116. I should alert on you

for not have a warning about those graphic photos of really scrumptious looking tomatoes.

[NRaleighLiberal]

124. .

[dgibby]

156. Yep!

I was about to do the same thing!

[Maedhros]

7. I never understood the animosity of Conservatives toward Bill Clinton.

He's the best Republican President we've ever had!

[closeupready]

31. The first black president, too.

[hedda_foil]

32. Sorry, but I think Eisenhower was the best Republican president since TR.

And he was the best since Lincoln.

Bill Clinton? Not so much.

[Maedhros]

40. But was Eisenhower able to sneak as much heinous legislation past an adoring, unsuspecting

Democratic rank-and-file without even a peep of resistance?

You're probably right. Even so, Republican criticism of Clinton is all for show.

[hifiguy]

84. Doubt he would have tried. Ike built the interstate Highway system.

expanded social security and supported unionization.

Some excerpts from the 1956 Republican platform - yes REPUBLICAN.

[karynnj]

87. Eisenhower ' s son endorsed Kerry in 2004

I think he endorsed Obama as well. Shows how the party moved. He was also a general.

[whathehell]

102. Some, like Thom Hartmann, think Eisenhower was more liberal

than Obama. That's how far both parties have lurched to the right.

Everyone should read Eisenhower's Farewell Address, in which he warns of the Military Industrial Complex and the desire of some in his party to eliminate Social Security, which he calls "stupid".

[hifiguy]

127. Eisenhower's Farewell

was one of the half-dozen greatest and most important speeches given in 20th Century America. And every president since JFK, who took it seriously (and you know what happened to him) has entirely ignored it.

The social security quote was actually from a letter DDE wrote to his brother Milton:

[whathehell]

130. I don't know...Carter didn't get us into any wars, even if

he was only one term...He also cut off aid to the fascists in Central America after some of their thugs murdered nuns and a few others for helping the poor.

I certainly agree to it being one of the great speeches, though.

[dgibby]

157. And the GOP would run him out of the party today. n/t

[hifiguy]

159. At the point of a shotgun,

WW II hero be damned.

[RufusTFirefly]

165. Eisenhower may have warned about the MIC, but...

... that was as he was heading out the door.
While he was still in the White House, he presided over some pretty nasty business abroad, including

the 1953 overthrow of Mossaddegh in Iran

the 1954 overthrow of Arbenz in Guatemala; and

the 1961 assassination of Patrice Lumumba, just days before JFK took office

[Daniel537]

170. And he initiated the embargo/covert war against Cuba.

His statement about the MIC was mostly about its power within the US, as he had no problem using it overseas.

[hedda_foil]

183. All true.

Eisenhower was not a particularly active president, and the CIA went off the rails on his watch. The only thing worse than one Dulles brother is two of them.

[AllyCat]

9. And he can say that if he has never bothered to pick up a single

comprehensive media or research analysis in the past 8 years. If not, he's not TECHNICALLY lying.

[Vincardog]

10. not TECHNICALLY lying is what he does best.

[RufusTFirefly]

11. Now if only his "co-president" would speak up.

Both Clintons are making the case that theirs was a co-presidency -- an echo of Bill Clinton's controversial statement during the 1992 campaign that voters would get "two for the price of one" if they elected him.

WaPo from 2007: Hillary Clinton Embraces Her Husband's Legacy

[Angry Dragon]

12. poor Bill is going senile

Bill is the democratic son that bush did not have

[hifiguy]

85. An honorary member of the Bush Crime Family.

And Chimpy thinks of HRH as a "sister-in-law." More you need to know? Really?

[Robbins]

13. sorry

that was terrable decision.he's too tight with wall street to see it.

[Kelvin Mace]

14. Blind denial

or abject stupidity.

[Jack Rabbit]

16. Well, Bill Clinton is not a stupid man

He could always deny having sex with those bankers on Wall Street.

[Chasstev365]

15. Deregulating the Telecommincations Industry was Worse!

Thanks Bill; for 10 to 1 Conservative radio stations and for Fox News, or as I like to call it "Goebbelsvision!"

[RufusTFirefly]

18. Don't forget NAFTA and Welfare Reform (sic)

It's a Hit Parade.

[appalachiablue]

34. Amazing how the Hit List, Damage and Mea Culpas are growing!

[Maedhros]

41. Don't leave out DOMA! [n/t]

[RufusTFirefly]

49. Oops!

You're so right. Almost as bad as forgetting Poland!

[closeupready]

48. Bill made permanent China's Most Favored Nation trading status.

[RufusTFirefly]

50. Yeah, but think how much worse it would've been...

... if we had elected an actual Republican.

[Plucketeer]

58. I don't wanna

hafta (rhymes with Nafta & Cafta) think that hard.

[Hydra]

177. Damn, they even sorta look alike...

[Tommymac]

54. The Crime Bill was on the Clinton 'Hit Parade' too.

[RufusTFirefly]

61. In fairness to Bill, maybe they showed him "the movie"

"I have this feeling that whoever is elected president, like Clinton was, no matter what you promise on the campaign trail – blah, blah, blah – when you win, you go into this smoke-filled room with the twelve industrialist capitalist scum-fucks who got you in there. And you're in this smoky room, and this little film screen comes down … and a big guy with a cigar goes, 'Roll the film.' And it's a shot of the Kennedy assassination from an angle you've never seen before … that looks suspiciously like it's from the grassy knoll. And then the screen goes up and the lights come up, and they go to the new president, 'Any questions?' 'Er, just what my agenda is.' 'First we bomb Baghdad.' 'You got it …'" -- Bill Hicks

[Tommymac]

167. LOL In all seriousness, that is why it is so important to elect someone who can't be leveraged

that way this cycle.

[Fortinbras Armstrong]

17. Repealing Glass-Steagall was a mistake.

The law repealing it was the Gramm–Leach–Bliley Act, named after the bill's sponsors, Senator Phil Gramm (R, TX), Representative Jim Leach (R, IA), and Representative Thomas Bliley (R, VA). Yes, Treasury Secretary Larry Summers supported it, and talked Bill Clinton into signing it.

I personally know an economist who quit his job at the Treasury Department because he disagreed with Summers to his face on Gramm-Leach-Bliley. According to him, a few years ago, he ran into Summers and said "I fucking told you so!"

[progressoid]

23. Jim Leach, who later endorsed Obama

then Obama gave him a job as chair of the NEH.

[RufusTFirefly]

45. I remember raising an eyebrow when Obama named Leach as an economic emissary

Along with that doyenne of international sensitivity, Madeleine "we think it's worth it" Albright.

And that was before the new President had even taken office.

Thank Dog we had the "Team of Rivals" meme to quickly explain away these otherwise disturbing actions.

That made perplexing appointments like Geithner, Summers, and Gates so much easier to swallow.

[truedelphi]

109. Funny how well these stupid memes are employed.

But no use thinking about it, we should all be "moving forward!" rather than employing our grey matter to figure things out.

[RufusTFirefly]

123. It's really rather creepy

Propagandists can play us like a cheap harmonica.

Especially creepy is the uncanny timing of militaristic movies, either when we're on the verge of another foreign adventure or when the public is losing patience with an overlong war.

[Hydra]

178. They've spent billions learning what makes people tick

In order to better control them via information. It's practically a science.

That, and if you get enough people to go along with the BS, they'll shout down the people who see through it. I remember it here when the "majority" told us to stop asking why Obama was bringing in so many of the Bush Team as his advisers.

As I asked at the time, "Are you telling me there are NO more qualified Democrats or Lefties ANYWHERE in America??"

[RufusTFirefly]

180. You asked a sensible, logical question. That was your fatal mistake.

Ironically, the people who smugly believe they're immune to propaganda are often the most susceptible to it.

[Hydra]

182. The koolaid was strong back then

Many people were in denial about the people who ran as (D)s. Obama did absolutely the most flagrant thing I've ever seen- He stated that he was not a Democrat, he was "Post Partisan" and his symbol shows the ground(what he's standing on) as Republican Red, and the sky(never reachable) as Demo Blue.

But still, he's a "Liberal Democrat" somehow. Facts, such pesky things...

[progressoid]

138. Shucks, that all worked out just fine.

For Wall Street.

[RufusTFirefly]

145. As the tobacco lobbyists liked to say, "Doubt is our product"

Last edited Tue Aug 11, 2015, 07:06 PM - Edit history (1)

The meme did its job. It prompted a lot of potential critics to ignore their gut feelings and pull their punches. He who hesitates is lost.

Fool me once...

[hedda_foil]

37. And let us not forget the role of the Commodities Futures Modernization Act...

The wellspring of the bonfire of the derivatives.

[snagglepuss]

175. Nice to hear accounts of people with that level of integrity and intelligence.

Thanks for posting.

[blackspade]

21. Is Clinton huffing paint?

"Look at all the grief I got for signing the bill that ended Glass-Steagall. There's not a single, solitary example that it had anything to do with the financial crash.”

What a bunch of bullshit.
I'm done with the Clintons.They are worse that the Repigs.
At least the GOP owns their bullshit.

[hifiguy]

160. Nope, he's smelling all that sweet, sweet money

that the plutocracy has given him in the last 14 years.

[MrMickeysMom]

181. You know.. this is the epitome of how the history of re-writing history...

… repeats itself.

Nothing to see here, Mr. & Mrs. America. Go back to bed. Hey, honey? Is American Gladiator on?

[Peace Patriot]

22. Oh, Bill, Bill, Bill...

...what will you not do for more wealth and power?

[catbyte]

24. "There's not a single, solitary example that it had anything to do with the financial crash.” HUH?!

That is the most disingenuous thing I have ever heard. OMFG. Repealing Glass-Steagall and NAFTA were the most horrific things that Clinton did, who is he trying to kid?



I don't know whether to or

[candelista]

25. What a thread!

I'm surprised that no one has alerted on everyone in it.

Is DU growing up?

[restorefreedom]

28. right in front of our eyes....

[ozone_man]

169. We always had the potential.

I can't believe he said that. Possibly taking the heat so Hillary Can differentiate from him?

Trust Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders, and sounds like O'Malley is on board. It needs to be restored.

[restorefreedom]

26. well at least we know where hillary will be on it

even if she refuses to tell us her self. These are smart, calculating, experienced politicians. He would never come out and say this if she was going to come out in a couple of weeks and say she wants to reinstitute it. He's trying to preemptively defend her. Nice try, not buying.

you can BOTH go back to Chappaqua and forget about getting back into the White House.

[magical thyme]

55. very good point.

"He would never come out and say this if she was going to come out in a couple of weeks and say she wants to reinstitute it."

[restorefreedom]

105. then again, we know he is ego driven

and since Hillary's prospects of winning are evaporating by the day, he could just be trying to protect his legacy. In a couple with two power-hungry people, it's hard to know whether they're looking out for each other or themselves.

[magical thyme]

110. another good point. but I think it's early yet

for him to be throwing her under the bus. More likely he's still trying to "help" her. Unfortunately for her, as we saw back in '08, help from him can be a lead boot

[restorefreedom]

136. yes i do think you.re correct

at this point he's probably trying to help her because they are desperately trying to get their butts back in the White House. But as you point out his "help" is probably ultimately not going to be that helpful.

[hifiguy]

86. A ten or twenty year vacation on Mars would be good for both Clintons.

And for the country.

[restorefreedom]

104. mars is too close

[karynnj]

97. not so clear

She rejected his crime bill before he did and that has been accepted by the populations most affected. BLM is cool with her policy statement even as that bill is responsible for things getting much worse - as was the welfare bill.

[restorefreedom]

101. if there is any doubt

it sure would be helpful if she just came out and said she supports/does not support.

it is a simple question and i am sure she has a position. the issue is when is she gonna tell prospective voters who deserve to know

[karynnj]

106. agreed, but it can be more complex

It is likely that there is a better updated version of GS that would preserve the goal of keeping bank money separate from risky speculation . I agree that especially having been the First Lady she should have a public position on this.

[ruffburr]

29. I Call bull shit-

The repeal of Glass-Steagall was the single biggest enabler of the financial fraud that the system has become while precipitating the economic collapse of 07,08,,09 etc. Bill , you screwed up period admit it.

[n8dogg83]

30. "Politicians — particularly now, in the aftermath of this crash — fear

that anything they do will be held against them later if anything bad happens," Clinton told Inc. in an interview. "Look at all the grief I got for signing the bill that ended Glass-Steagall. There's not a single, solitary example that it had anything to do with the financial crash.”



Wow. I am stunned to silence by that quote.

[jwirr]

119. The problem is he thinks of economic success from the point of view of Wall Street. He has

never bothered to look at it from the bottom up. So the fact that the ordinary people lost their savings, their pensions does not enter their thinking. If Wall Street is doing fine then America is doing fine. Something like the old saying "What is good for Chrystler is good for America." But that no longer works if it ever did. The economy is totally trickle up now.

[historylovr]

33. I guess it depends on what your definition of "single, solitary example" is.

[Divernan]

35. HRC getting pushed hard to take position; lets Bill out in public

to pave the way for her taking the position of defending it - that would keep her Wall Street funders happy.

OR
He's slipped his leash and gone rogue on the campaign because his ego demands he defend his actions.

Surely, if and when HRC holds an unscripted press conference, some MSM type will push her to comment on Bill's comments. Repeal of Glass-Steagall should also be discussed in any Democratic primary debate - should one ever actually take place.

[passiveporcupine]

53. He has not slipped his leash

Why do you think he is now apologizing for some of the things he did while in office?

Do you think he really means it?

[Divernan]

60. He's not apologizing for G/S; he's defending it.

I'm only discussing that, as it is the topic of the OP, and I gave 2 alternative explanations for why he's doing it.

I don't know what are the "some of the things" you are referring to, so can't respond to your question.

I do know that Bill Clinton has the level of personal charm and charisma enabling him to sell freezers to the Inuit and Yupik people of Alaska during a raging blizzard. Who knows when he really means anything? Not me.

[passiveporcupine]

62. I know, but he's apologized for things that Hillary claims to support now

He cannot apologize for things Hillary is standing firm on. That wouldn't be good for her campaign. He is her campaign stooge now. He'll do whatever is necessary.

[Divernan]

68. It's not in his nature to apologize for anything

I don't know what apologies you are referring to.

I do agree that Bill and Hillary will do whatever is necessary to win. If a faux apology will win votes, he'll make it. Will he mean it? That's an unanswerable question.

Do you recall when HRC "lost" (just couldn't find them anywhere!) her billing records from her time at the Rose law firm in Arkansas? They were subpoenaed as part of the Whitewater Investigation. After 2 years, they amazingly(!) turned up just sitting on a table in the White House private family quarters, next to the door to her private office. When the Whitewater investigation first started, well-respected Dems urged her to just produce all the documents and get the investigation over. She refused and stalled for some 2 years. Ken Starr was in the midst of closing down the investigation when these billing records finally surfaced. He then reactivated it, and it was during that time period that L'affaire Lewinsky occurred. So if HRC could have just taken some criticism at the get-go, and honored the court's subpoena, Starr would have been long gone before Monica entered the picture, and Bill would not have lied under oath about his sexual activities and would not have been impeached.

http://www.nytimes.com/1996/01/06/us/elusive-papers-of-law-firm-are-found-at-white-house.html

In February 1997, Starr announced he would leave the investigation to pursue a position at the Pepperdine University School of Law. However, he "flip flopped" in the face of "intense criticism", and new evidence of sexual misconduct.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whitewater_controversy

I don't know what is more horrifying - the prospect of her as nominee and the rehashing of all the years of Clinton scandals, or her & Bill back in the oval office, with her list of enemies upon whom to wreak revenge.

First on CNN–Confidant’s diary: Clinton wanted to keep records for ‘revenge'
Posted by
CNN 's Dan Merica, CNN Political Research Director Robert Yoon

Fayetteville, Arkansas (CNN) - Shortly before Hillary Clinton’s effort to pass health care reform died in the summer of 1994, the first lady asked a close friend and confidant for advice on “how best to preserve her general memories of the administration and of health care in particular.”

When asked why, according to the friend’s June 20, 1994, diary entry, Clinton said, “Revenge.”
http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2014/02/12/confidants-diary-clinton-wanted-to-keep-records-for-revenge/

[ericson00]

71. Any "Democrat" who uses the "Whitewater 'scandal'" against the Clintons

is really as much a Democrat as Richard Shelby or Strom Thurmond was (hint: were they most recently Democrats?)

[karynnj]

115. Not Whitewater itself, but stalling on getting everything out

They were advised by many prominent Democrats to quickly get everything out volentarilly especially because they had done nothing wrong. Diverman did a great job explaining the real consecuence of not doing so.

Note also the pattern here. Even as Obama's SoS, she went out of her way to hide her email. Even when she left office, the SD did not have it.

[passiveporcupine]

75. Here you go

Bill Clinton Concedes His Crime Law Jailed Too Many for Too Long

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/16/us/politics/bill-clinton-concedes-his-crime-law-jailed-too-many-for-too-long.html?_r=0

Appologizes for Don't Ask Don't Tell and Crime bill

In a speech to the NAACP national convention, Clinton very prominently echoed earlier statements of regret about contributing to indiscriminate mass incarceration with his signature crime bill, the 1994 Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act. “I signed a bill that made the problem worse and I want to admit it,”

http://www.salon.com/2015/07/25/bill_clintons_gutsy_apologies_now_he_owes_one_to_ricky_ray_rector/

Bernie has pushed Hillary to the left on some of these issues, so Bill has to come out to support her new direction by apologizing for his (their) part in these bad decisions.

They can change direction on social issues now that they are such a big issue for the masses...but they will never change position on the trade policies and banking decisions that helped wall street (and them) to become wealthier, while destroying the middle class and leaving more people in poverty (not all during Bill's time in office).

[Divernan]

80. Good example. She's still taking money from private prison interests, though

The Clintons can campaign on the apology, but what will the follow through be if she became president? She's really good at excusing inaction by saying that a problem is just too complex for a quick fix/simple solution/etc. One popular presidential excuse is that an issue is up to the Congress. However, it corporate interests/Wall Street/Big banking/Private Prison Industry really believed that, why would they give jack shit to any presidential candidate?

What do you think?

[passiveporcupine]

83. I trust her campaign promises as far as I can throw them

If they were historically representative of who she was, I would trust her. They aren't and I don't.

The only things I think she will actually stand up for are women's issues.

[Divernan]

91. Only as long as those issues don't impact on corporations' bottom lines.

Equal pay for equal work, a $15.00 minimum wage, paid sick leave, are key women's issues, particularly for single moms. Wish someone would do the math - if all women workers are on average paid something like $.85 for every dollar paid to male workers, that would be one helluva expense for corporate employers to rectify. "OMG, Muffy, our dividends have been reduced by 2 cents a quarter! We'll just have to slash Nanny's Christmas bonus!"

Corporations don't give a shit about soft issues like abortion or gay marriage, but issues that come with a Dollar Sign will not be tolerated.

[hifiguy]

108. Walkoff grand slam home run.

Buzzer-beating three-pointer for the win.

"Corporations don't give a shit about soft issues like abortion or gay marriage, but issues that come with a Dollar Sign will not be tolerated."

I've been saying this for years and it falls on deaf ears most of the time. Those issues are used only as propaganda ploys to rile up the low-watt bulbs as a part of the overarching "lead yourselves to the slaughterhouse" strategy that is ever the essence and goal of plutocracy.

[hifiguy]

89. Yep, and anyone who is taking money from those scumbags has

no real commitment to racial justice. Their entire business model is based on the incarceration of as many black and latino people as possible.

More lies.

[truedelphi]

120. Well what can anyone expect from someone who started out as the private attorney to

Sam Walton, founder and CEO of WalMart, at the very time in the 1980's when WalMart was slamming mom and pop stores all over the USA??

Of course, she had that little ghost-written book of hers done up "It takes a village" and that established how she is all about the children! (Just not the children of anyone but the very very rich!)

[hifiguy]

129. Truth. nt

[restorefreedom]

100. yeah and its a big freakin if

that hillary wasserman schultz will allow real questions to be asked by neutral, non pro hillary plants..er, moderators.

and that hillary will do a non scripted press conference with unscreened plants,..er, journalists..

i am skeptical either will ever happen. i agree with your idea of bill paving the way. he could also be pissed that hrc in the white house is looking bleak and he is trying to protect his own legacy

[karynnj]

103. in fairness. would any former President not try

To defend himself against the list of things that liberals have listed here as ultimately being harmful?

I think that is part of the complication of his wife running. It means that all the negatives do get resurfaced. Remember that the same thing happened in 2007 and for about 2 years it greatly impaired how people saw him. In a 2008 article after SC a confidant of his said he expected that but thought that even going negative to help HRC would ultimately be worth it and his image would recover. Even though Obama won, he was right.

He is human and I assume reacts to being blamed for a crash 7 years after he left office. It reminds me of the visible anger when Chris Wallace in a Fox interview brought up a TV movie that suggested he could have taken out OBL.

[arcane1]

36. It's false to claim "both parties are the same", but they are far too god-damn similar!

And for the country's sake, we need to kick out the corpratists in OUR party. They have another party they can go to if they want. Maybe they'll dilute some of the crazy on that side.

[jalan48]

38. I read he gets $ 500,000 per speaking engagement. Who pays for those kinds of speeches?

[hifiguy]

47. The people he served so well as POTUS

that's who. The Plutocracy.

[candelista]

128. $1.5 million came from the United Bank of Switzerland.

The Swiss bank UBS is one of the biggest, most powerful financial institutions in the world. As secretary of state, Hillary Clinton intervened to help it out with the IRS. And after that, the Swiss bank paid Bill Clinton $1.5 million for speaking gigs ($500,000 each).

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/07/hillary-helps-a-bankand-then-it-pays-bill-15-million-in-speaking-fees/400067/

[Babel_17]

39. I guess this dovetails with the schedule for debates

President Clinton is tough, and I guess he's locking things down and not conceding anything. Huh, that strategy is going to need more than just controlling the schedule. HRC might seek to distance her position from her husband by a few degrees but nobody has forgotten the hammering their investments/pensions/careers took from the meltdown. If they're not reigned in, HRC's opponents will make the issue of the reinstatement of Glass-Steagal like provisions very prominent, and refer to it often.

[KoKo]

42. He's going to be in the White House with a role in some Policy Decisions...

if Hillary wins. How could Hillary possibly keep Bill out of her Presidency? So, we will have a Co-Presidency meaning that we need to know not only where Hillary stands on issues decided in Bills' Presidency but what Bill is thinking of achieving in Hillary's Presidency.

Do we want someone back in power (even in the Role of "First Man&quot who denies what the repeal of Glass-Steagall did to bring on the Financial Crisis. What about the other legislation he signed like Commodities Futures Modernization Act, Welfare Reform, Telecommunications Modernization Act...and that's after he kicked off his Presidency with NAFTA.

Bill Clinton was a huge disappointment to those of us who Defended him against the RW and Monica stuff still believing he would turn out to be "The Man from Hope." I lost friends over my defense of him because I didn't believe there was a "Blue Dress" because I knew the Repubs had been after Bill & Hillary since his inauguration. I thought Monica was all lies.

Oh...and I forgot the "Invasion of Haiti."

[KoKo]

51. Bill Clinton's Shameful Haiti Legacy

He may be playing the hero now, but the ex-president’s trip to Haiti is a reminder of the mess his administration left behind. Bob Shacochis on how Clinton wasted a good invasion.

Like many Haitians and not a few Americans who know the island and its history, I had mixed feelings watching the video of former President Clinton step off a plane on to the tarmac at Toussaint Loverture International Airport in Port-au-Prince on Monday afternoon. Bill Clinton, the Second Coming of Hope. The First Coming, the U.S.-led invasion in 1994 adorned with 20,000 American troops, did not turn out so well. By 1996, when the American military decamped, you’d be hard pressed to find a Haitian on the streets of Port-au-Prince who wasn’t suffering miserably from hope. By 1996, Haitians were scratching their heads in bewilderment, asking themselves Why has America come to save us? Who will save us now? Ten years later, by almost every measure, Haiti was worse off than it was before Clinton had “rescued” it from the illegitimate regime of General Raoul Cedras and his gang of terrorist enforcers, known by the acronym FRAPH.
I had heard the Haitians saying of the U.S. after the American troops went home: “Lave men ou, siye li a te. It looks like you wash your hands and dry them in dirt.”

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2010/01/19/bill-clintons-shameful-haiti-legacy.html

[Geronimoe]

43. It depends on what time of the day it is and also on what is, is

Back during the world economic meltdown, he blamed repeal of Glass-Steagall and his only mistake was in taking bad advise of Larry Summers, Phil Gramm, and the banksters who got him elected.

[erronis]

44. Perhaps the "it" impeachment proceedings by the 'uglicans was a smokescreen

To let Bill be tarred and feathered in public but also to let his pro-big business policies get through.

Dems were up in arms about the attack on the popular president. They would have defended him if he had declared that he was the new black jesus. Pro-banking policies - minor problems.

"honesty among thieves"

[hifiguy]

46. Hey, Bill

STFU and Go The Fuck Away. Forever.

[magical thyme]

56. well it depends...

[bahrbearian]

57. I bet you wished you had posted this in the Sander's Group

because of all the flack HRC group is giving you. I hear crickets.

[onecaliberal]

59. He can't think we are dumb enough to buy that steaming pile.

[Report1212]

63. I see he's helping Hillary out the same way he did in 2008

Keep going Bill!

[Hugin]

64. IMHO... There is no defense. n/t

[Cosmic Kitten]

67. Great, maybe Bill and Hillary can get back in ofice and finish what they started...

destroying the 99%

Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton declined to take a position on the policy while campaigning in South Carolina last month.

WOW she is our "champion"!
Such strong leadership!
She is really fighting for average Americans!

[jwirr]

69. If it CAUSEd the financial crash in 2007 is not the point. IF it had still been in place many

of us would not have lost OUR money in that crash because it would have been in commercial banks that invested only in local economies and were covered by FDIC.

When he supported the repeal of Glass-Steagall OUR money and OUR pensions were combined with the investment banks money and we had no choice in the matter of investing. OUR money was then used by the investors to gamble with. The repeal also allowed these investors inclusion in the FDIC rule so when they lost the gamble FDIC did not have enough money to cover the loses so we ended up bailing them out with taxpayer money.

Glass-Steagall required investment banks to buy their own insurance against failure (apart from FDIC) and to take the risks with their own money. Had Glass-Steagall been in effect there would have been no bailout and IMO the banks would never have played so fast and loose with their own money as they did with OURS.

Before Glass-Steagall was repealed the depositor who did not want to play the stock market put his/her money in the commercial bank. IF they wanted to invest in the stock market they moved the money to an investment bank. As simple as that.

Remember how they are trying to get us to privatize Social Security so they can invest it in Wall Street? That is what happened to OUR money when Glass-Steagall was repealed. I wonder how many depositors actually got THEIR money back after the crash?

[emsimon33]

70. Bill Clinton is brilliant. He knew the horrific consequences of the repeal

But the repeal of Glass-Steagall was not the only negative of his presidency: TANF, NAFTA, prison "reform," etc., etc., etc.

He knew what he was doing and his post-presidency closeness to the Bushes only reinforces his moral turpitude. While Republicans have reviled him for his sexual immorality, the more telling actions of his lack of a moral compass are how he sold out the American people for his own gain post-presidency.

He is a powerful thinker and orator. He could have been such a powerful leader of implementing the vision of a better America and world. But he is a Neoliberal. Enough said except that people are tired of the impact of Neoliberalism on their lives and future. Hence their distrust of his wife, another Neoliberal and hawk, Hillary.

[hifiguy]

111. Yep. 2008 was an intended feature and natural consequence,

a ticking bomb all the insiders knew was there. Not a bug, not at all.

[emsimon33]

147. Many people warned but no one listened!

[gregcrawford]

72. Pssst! Bill! STFU!

That's a bald-faced lie, Clinton. Oh, I guess it depends on what your definition of "Example" is.

Grow a pair, Willie, and take responsibility for the worst mistake of your presidency. Apart from that damned cigar. But then, you've always been one of those "Third Way" turncoats, haven't you?

No one with the brains of a potted plant will ever trust you again.

[Roland99]

74. Denial....not just a river in Egypt

[jtuck004]

76. Repeal of Glass-Steagall Caused the Financial Crisis The repeal of the law separating commercial and

http://www.usnews.com/opinion/blogs/economic-intelligence/2012/08/27/repeal-of-glass-steagall-caused-the-financial-crisis

Repeal of Glass-Steagall Caused the Financial Crisis
The repeal of the law separating commercial and investment banking caused the 2008 financial crisis.

The oldest propaganda technique is to repeat a lie emphatically and often until it is taken for the truth. Something like this is going on now with regard to banks and the financial crisis. The big bank boosters and analysts who should know better are repeating the falsehood that repeal of Glass-Steagall had nothing to do with the Panic of 2008.

In fact, the financial crisis might not have happened at all but for the 1999 repeal of the Glass-Steagall law that separated commercial and investment banking for seven decades. If there is any hope of avoiding another meltdown, it's critical to understand why Glass-Steagall repeal helped to cause the crisis. Without a return to something like Glass-Steagall, another greater catastrophe is just a matter of time.

History is a good place to begin. After the Depression of 1920-21, the United States embarked on a period of economic prosperity known as the Roaring Twenties. It was a time of innovation, especially in consumer goods such as automobiles, radio, and refrigeration. Along with these goods came new forms of consumer credit and bank expansion. National City Bank (forerunner of today's Citibank) and Chase Bank opened offices to sell securities side-by-side with traditional banking products like deposits and loans.
...

Yeah, not one solitary example. About 50 million of them - people thrown into poverty where their children and children's children will follow, millions more on food stamps, 9 million FAMILIES thrown in the street in foreclosure.

Did more damage to working Americans than any president in modern history.


Didn't stop there - reformed welfare, and "How Bill Clinton's Welfare "Reform" Created a System Rife With Racial Biases"

...
Bill Clinton ran on this idea that he was going to end welfare as we know it. And he was also going to get tougher on crime. He was attempting to reassure white voters, but once the Republicans took Congress, in 1994, Clinton found that he had painted himself into a corner, because of course the Republicans were willing to go much farther in this game than he was.

After that, for a public that had already learned to think of welfare as a black program — that had internalized these Republican calls to get tough on the welfare queens and whatnot — welfare now became center stage. The public was aroused, so something had to be done.

We looked at public opinion on welfare and racial attitudes, analyzing not just the overall trends, but studying the views of actual individuals over time. And what we found was fascinating. First, not many other factors predicted who would hold those kinds of views of welfare. It was pretty broad. But the one thing that did predict a negative view of welfare was negative beliefs about African-Americans, particularly a belief in black laziness. And also stereotypes of black women as being sexually irresponsible.
...

It wasn't enough to make it possible to throw tens of millions into permanent poverty, but he then had to exacerbate the problems with race, and make it even more dangerous to be black.

Clinton left us the stage to create more hungry, desperate people at risk for their very lives than any pres in a long, long time.

Interesting - google "bill clinton regrets" and you get half a million results. But google "the people regret bill clinton" and it is off the charts.

The liar did so much damage to working Americans and black folk I doubt even President Sanders will be able to fix it.

[ericson00]

77. Blaming Bill for the crisis is as idiotic as blaming him for

9/11: there was a huge lag behind the end of the Clinton admin, Jan 20 2001, and those events

But on the subject of Glass-Steagall:

1. The bill in which its repeal was had a veto-proof vote
2. Glass-Steagall was not being enforced hard anyway
and most importantly:
3. The financial crisis was brought on by an asset bubble which resulted from Bush's pressure on the Fed to have ultralow interest rates (they were lower after 2001 than before) which made credit way to easy to get in Bush's "ownership society."

Popular myth, like this, is a GOP-originated rhetorical rebuttal to the fact that much more of Reagan/Bushes policy had a role. It has no place here on Democratic Underground, tho maybe on Republican Underground (like FR, Redstate). Its also disgraceful how some posters below used Whitewater and Monica against the Clintons, two of the biggest wastes of media time in our country's history. We really ought to have an 11th commandment, and thus show honour to the Clintons.

You Clinton-bashers are a disgrace and make normal people sick.

[hifiguy]

113. That it takes a long while for the bomb to go off

after the fuse is lit hardly absolves the person who knowingly lit the fuse.

[passiveporcupine]

144. Who are you?

The financial crisis was brought on by an asset bubble which resulted from Bush's pressure on the Fed to have ultralow interest rates (they were lower after 2001 than before) which made credit way to easy to get in Bush's "ownership society."

What were the interest rates then? What are they now? Have they ever been this low for this long?

Why aren't we in a housing bubble right now? Could it be because Warren is watching over the actions of banks and wall street and they are not as free to float the phony loans they were playing with before, using our money?

Interest rates alone can't explain what happened on wall street. The banks broke laws and got away with it.

You Clinton-bashers are a disgrace and make normal people sick.

Welcome to DU. Enjoy your stay.

[ericson00]

81. article also says "Most economists at the Federal Reserve agree..."

[that]...the repeal of the policy in 1999 didn't contribute to the crash."

End of story. The end. Clinton is the greatest president of the last 25 years who brought our party on the path to five popular vote victories in six elections. Case closed.

[RufusTFirefly]

88. Sorry, but one of Hillary Clinton's top economic advisers disagrees

Yesterday {Sep. 19, 2008} a group of economists, including Nobel Prize winner Joseph Stiglitz, slammed Gramm for having a “mentality that doesn’t understand the nature of systemic risks in financial systems,” and said that his bill helped create the current financial turmoil:

...

Gramm’s successful effort to pass banking reform laws in 1999, which reduced decades-old regulations separating banking, insurance and brokerage activities, helped to create the current economic crisis.

“As a result, the culture of investment banks was conveyed to commercial banks and everyone got involved in the high-risk gambling mentality. That mentality was core to the problem that we’re facing now,” Stiglitz says.

Economists: Gramm To Blame For The Current Crisis
http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2008/09/20/172364/economists-blame-gramm/

[ericson00]

90. he wasn't talking about the contents of the bill, but the "mentality"

two different things.

[hifiguy]

114. The enaction of the bill was what allowed the mentality to run free.

When you let Charlie Manson out of his cage, good things will happen, right?

[RufusTFirefly]

118. You're grasping at straws

The latest crisis has provoked a new debate over the old regulatory regime. Nobel laureate economist Joseph Stiglitz has argued that the repeal of Glass-Steagall had an "especial role" in making the financial calamity of 2008 possible. Former Fed Chairman Paul Volcker, currently the head of the President's Economic Recovery Advisory Board, has called for a new separation between commercial banking and riskier financial activities.

http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052748704586504574654751857203602

[hifiguy]

131. When it comes to economics, the only time Stiglitz isn't the smartest person in the room

is if Rick Wolff, Paul Krugman and/or Thomas Piketty are also there. Then he's one of the two, three, or four smartest people in the room.

[RufusTFirefly]

161. Totally agree

I might also add Ha-Joon Chang to that list. (And perhaps Dean Baker, too?)

[hifiguy]

162. Jamie Galbraith, too,

But it isn't a hugely long list.

Thanks for the tip on Chang. Will check out his work.

[RufusTFirefly]

164. Haha. Agree once again! Looks like we've already got the starting rotation.

Perhaps Galbraith protege, Yanis Varoufakis, along with U of Missouri Kansas City's Michael Hudson could be warming up in the bullpen.

[Demeter]

82. Shouldn't have gone there, Bill

but you never really wanted Hillary in charge anyway, did you?

[cantbeserious]

93. A DLC Third Way Man To The Core

eom

[karynnj]

94. this is similar to many things he did in 2008 that HRC likely wished he did not

It does kind of show another aspect of why the wife of a former President running is complicated. In 2008, one main impact was that as she was running partly on all the good done in the 1990s, it meant the competitors often did something that otherwise is unusual. They pointed out negatives of a former President of their party.

Here, you have a man of abundant ego who is rejecting an a conclusion that blames him as President for advocating for and signing into law something that is now seen to have caused worldwide damage. It is unreasonable to expect him to say mea culpa for everything as he did on the crime bill.

He is defending his own legacy and that defense could get in the way of HRC' s definition if herself. On the one hanf, she is a separate person, but on the other her years as first lady of the US and Arkansas are very much a part of her resume.

[jfern]

95. The Clintons caused the Great Recession

If I wanted Republican policies, I'd vote Republican. No more Clintons.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

96. "There's not a single, solitary example that it had anything to do with the financial crash."

True.

There's multiple examples.

[BillZBubb]

112. "I didn't have relations with those investment firms!"

Sorry Bill, but the repeal of Glass Steagall was a colossal mistake. It, by itself, didn't cause the collapse that followed, but it was a major enabling event. Your failure to properly regulate commodities and derivatives was also disastrous.

You screwed up. Own it.

[Hoyt]

117. There are more than a few who believe Clinton is right.

http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2012/05/21/reinstating-an-old-rule-is-not-a-cure-for-crisis/?_r=0

_______________

"Facts such as that Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers and Merrill Lynch — three institutions at the heart of the crisis — were pure investment banks that had never crossed the old line into commercial banking. The same goes for Goldman Sachs, another favorite villain of the left.

"The infamous AIG? An insurance firm. New Century Financial? A real estate investment trust. No Glass-Steagall there."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/2011/02/24/ABPqBzI_page.html

[Octafish]

126. Ha ha. It is to laugh. Tim Geithner made AIG whole 100-cents on the dollar courtesy US Treasury

Timothy Geithner and AIG-Gate

The World’s Greatest Insurance Heist

by ELLEN BROWN
FEBRUARY 08, 2010
CounterPunch

EXCERPT...

Geithner has been under the House microscope for the decision of the New York Fed, made while he headed it, to buy out about $30 billion in credit default swaps (over-the-counter derivative insurance contracts) that AIG sold on toxic debt securities. The chief recipients of this payout were Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch, Societe Generale and Deutsche Bank. Goldman got $13 billion, roughly equivalent to its bonus pool for the first 9 months of 2009. Critics are calling the New York Fed’s decision a back-door bailout for the banks, which received 100 cents on the dollar for contracts that would have been worth far less had AIG been put through bankruptcy proceedings in the ordinary way. In a Bloomberg article provocatively titled “Secret Banking Cabal Emerges from AIG Shadows,” David Reilly writes:

(T)he New York Fed is a quasi-governmental institution that isn’t subject to citizen intrusions such as freedom of information requests, unlike the Federal Reserve. This impenetrability comes in handy since the bank is the preferred vehicle for many of the Fed’s bailout programs. It’s as though the New York Fed was a black-ops outfit for the nation’s central bank.

The beneficiaries of the New York Fed’s largesse got paid in full although they had agreed to take much less. In a November 2009 article titled “It’s Time to Fire Tim Geithner,” Dylan Ratigan wrote:

(L)ast November . . . New York Federal Reserve Governor Tim Geithner decided to deliver 100 cents on the dollar, in secret no less, to pay off the counter parties to the world’s largest (and still un-investigated) insurance fraud — AIG. This full payoff with taxpayer dollars was carried out by Geithner after AIG’s bank customers, such as Goldman Sachs, Deutsche Bank and Societe Generale, had already previously agreed to taking as little as 40 cents on the dollar. Even after the GM autoworkers, bondholders and vendors all received a government-enforced haircut on their contracts, he still had the audacity to claim the “sanctity of contracts” in the dealings with these companies like AIG.

Geithner testified that the Fed’s hands were tied and that the bank could not “selectively default on contractual obligations without courting collapse.” But if it was all on the up and up, why all the secrecy? The contention that the Fed had no choice is also belied by a recent holding in the Lehman Brothers bankruptcy, in which New York Bankruptcy Judge James Peck set aside the same type of investment contracts that Secretaries Paulson and Geithner repeatedly swore under oath had to be paid in full in the case of AIG. The judge declared that clauses in those contracts subordinating other claims to the holders’ claims were null and void in bankruptcy.
“And notice,” comments bank analyst Chris Whalen, “that the world has not ended when the holders of contracts are treated like everyone else.” He calls the AIG bailout “a hideous political contrivance that ranks with the great acts of political corruption and thievery in the history of the United States.”

CONTINUED...

http://www.counterpunch.org/2010/02/08/the-world-s-greatest-insurance-heist/

[Hoyt]

132. Has nothing to do with Glass-Steagall, the crux of this thread. along with Obama and Clinton bashing

Not to mention AIG repaid bailout.

[Octafish]

139. Great. I'll go with William K. Black on this one.

Goldman AIG To Become Obama's New Scandal

By William K. Black
New Economic Perspectives, June 9, 2015

EXCERPT...

The bailout of Goldman via AIG had two parts. The largely fraudulently-originated mortgages backing Goldman's CDOs suffered crushing defaults as the housing bubble burst and the bad loans could no longer be refinanced to delay the loss recognition. The credit rating agencies, whose managers became wealthy by selling enormously inflated ratings to toxic CDOs and mortgage-backed securities (MBS) finally began to recognize reality and engaged in, by far, the greatest and quickest rating downgrades in history. This should have triggered AIG's obligation to pay the CDS protection for vast amounts of toxic CDOs and MBS - but that would have rendered AIG insolvent and the CDO and MBS holders would have had to recognize vast losses. Other entities that sold CDS protection were in a similar position to AIG and they began negotiating deals to pay roughly 15 cents on the dollar of their obligation. It is better to get 15 cents on the dollar now than risk getting close to zero 18 months from now after the firm that sold you illusory CDS protection is liquidated in a bankruptcy proceeding. This kind of commercial workout is the norm in big finance.

Goldman had already received the twin direct bailouts provided by the Fed and Treasury (through the TARP program). Absent similar bailouts every one of the largest banks in the U.S. and the EU would have failed as the financial markets froze and the economy went into freefall.

But Goldman was the primary indirect beneficiary of two federal bailouts through AIG. The first bailout of AIG was the U.S. purchase of most of most of AIG's equity at a price far above market value. Absent this bailout AIG would have had to declare bankruptcy in Fall 2008. This bailout was strongly pushed by what became the U.S. bailout troika - Ben Bernanke (the Fed Chairman), Timothy Geithner (President of N.Y. Fed), and Hank Paulson (Treasury Secretary). Yes, the same Hank Paulson who was made even wealthier by leading Goldman's purchase of huge amounts of toxic CDOs and MBS and illusory CDS "protection" from AIG.

Goldman is known as "Government Sachs" because of its incestuous relationship with government. Bob Rubin had run Goldman before becoming President Clinton's Treasury Secretary. The Bush and Obama administration were infested with Goldman alums in key positions. The Obama administration also had Rubin protégés like Geithner controlling most of the top financial positions. Indeed, for extensive periods every top Obama economics official has been a Rubin protégé.

While Geithner is famous for his faux indignation that people believed from his slavish devotion to furthering the interests of the wealthiest and most criminal banksters that he had worked at a Wall Street firm, everyone knows that the NY Fed is Wall Street. It functions for Wall Street's CEOs, not the American people, regardless of what administration is in power. Geithner, who has now, formally, joined Wall Street and been made even wealthier, is one of the three most infamous financial regulators in U.S. history. He shares that dishonor with Bernanke and the worst-of-the-worst, Alan Greenspan. The Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission (and even the Fed's own external report) confirm what we all knew - even among the embarrassment that was "Fed Lite" regulation globally, the NY Fed stood out as uniquely terrible because of its servile approach to the elite banksters.

CONTINUED...

http://www.econmatters.com/2015/06/goldman-aig-to-become-obamas-new-scandal.html

Even if AIG repaid every cent on the dollar, they were made whole courtesy of the US taxpayer, millions of whom were tossed from their homes in the process.

[Hoyt]

143. Whey do you keep posting things that have nothing to do with Glass-Steagall?

[Octafish]

148. Why do you keep repeating they have nothing to do with Glass-Steagall?

AIG was made whole by US taxpayers. If it weren't, AIG wouldn't be able to pay off the banks they owed, looted by banksters, but also made whole by taxpayers.

Other than that, no. Nothing to see, really.

[Hoyt]

151. Had nothing to do with Glass-Steagall. Apparently, you don't understand the law.

[Octafish]

163. Actually, I do. And the whole thing has to do with Glass Steagall.

Saying it doesn't may make you feel better, but it doesn't make me feel better.

Repeal of Glass-Steagall Caused the Financial Crisis

The repeal of the law separating commercial and investment banking caused the 2008 financial crisis.

By James Rickards Aug. 27, 2012

EXCERPT...

In 1999, Democrats led by President Bill Clinton and Republicans led by Sen. Phil Gramm joined forces to repeal Glass-Steagall at the behest of the big banks. What happened over the next eight years was an almost exact replay of the Roaring Twenties. Once again, banks originated fraudulent loans and once again they sold them to their customers in the form of securities. The bubble peaked in 2007 and collapsed in 2008. The hard-earned knowledge of 1933 had been lost in the arrogance of 1999.

The bank supporters' attacks on this clear-as-a-bell narrative deserve a hearing to show how flimsy they are. One bank supporter says you cannot blame banks for fraudulent loan originations because that was done by unscrupulous mortgage brokers. This is nonsense. The brokers would not have been able to fund the loans in the first place if the banks had not been buying their production.

Another apologist says the fact that no big banks failed in the crisis proves they were not the cause of the problem. This is also ludicrous. The reason the big banks did not fail was because they were bailed out by the government. Clearly the banks would have failed but for the bailouts. Bank balance sheets were neck-deep in liar loans and underwater home equity lines of credit. The fact that banks did not fail proves nothing except that they were too big to fail.

Yet another big bank spokesman says that nonbanks such as Lehman and Bear Stearns were more to blame for the crisis. This ignores the fact that nonbanks get their funding from banks in the form of mortgages, repurchase agreements, and lines of credit. Without the big banks providing easy credit on bad collateral like structured products, the nonbanks would not have been able to leverage themselves.

It is true that the financial crisis has enough blame to go around. Borrowers were reckless, brokers were greedy, rating agencies were negligent, customers were naïve, and government encouraged the fiasco with unrealistic housing goals and unlimited lines of credit at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

Yet, the fact that there were so many parties to blame should not be used to deflect blame from the most responsible parties of all—the big banks. Without the banks providing financing to the mortgage brokers and Wall Street while underwriting their own issues of toxic securities, the entire pyramid scheme would never have got off the ground.

CONTINUED...

http://www.usnews.com/opinion/blogs/economic-intelligence/2012/08/27/repeal-of-glass-steagall-caused-the-financial-crisis

Correct me if I'm wrong, please. I am not a lawyer. But those are the facts as I see them. I can understand how you might not like them, though.

[Hoyt]

166. Krugman differs

It’s true that Glass-Steagall, a Great Depression–era law that forbade the mixing of securities trading and accepting FDIC-insured deposits under the same corporate roof, wouldn’t have prevented the 2008 implosion of Wall Street. Instead, it was extraordinarily high levels of leverage at investment banks like Lehman and Merrill Lynch, as well as the holding of huge portfolios of toxic subprime mortgages by deposit-taking banks like Bank of America, that were the fuel for the conflagration."
________________

Glass-Steagall was never the problem. The remainder of the paragraph above was: "But progressives were right to feel that Wall Street had been dangerously underregulated for too long and that the entire country was now paying the price." That's hard to disagree with.

[Octafish]

121. Here's why he's defending it...

http://financialservicesinc.ubs.com/revitalizingamerica/SenatorPhilGramm.html

In the "Wealth Management" business with Phil Gramm the GOP Deregulator and now Vice Chair of UBS, the US Bailout Swiss Bankster Kings.

[DonCoquixote]

122. Trying to talk Hillary out of winning again Billy?

Bill, you are, and yes were, the millstone around Hillary's neck. SHUT UP! Even those who would vote for Hillary have every right to be nauseous at the thought of YOU trying to make this your de facto third term!

This is not about defending your manhood, or trying to defend YOUR legacy, and if you cannot handle that, go smoke another one of your cigars while the adults keep the GOP out of office!

[cosmicone]

125. Amazing and amusing to watch a frenzied orgy over this OP

from a certain candidate's supporters.

It is not a coincidence.

What is forgotten is that Clinton led the largest economic expansion in this country, created the most jobs of any president and created a budget surplus.

Such blame ascribed to Clinton is only seen on right-wing sites. Since supporters of said candidate frequently regurgitate RW and Rovian memes, it is not surprising.

The whole idea seems to be that Clinton didn't tax people to the hilt to create an unlimited, no questions asked welfare system and that he didn't engage in isolationist policies to tax all imports so that poorly made American goods will have an advantage.

What is completely forgotten is that isolationist, confiscatory redistribution is not what something America will ever be ready for and no matter who the wet-dream candidate is, he/she won't accomplish diddly squat when faced with a mainstream public, media and congress.

[hifiguy]

133. No less a genuinely liberal brainiac than Joseph Stiglitz,.

who was actually inside the administration at the time, has said that the cause of the largest share of the 1990s boom was the tech bubble, which Greenspan and the Fed deliberately inflated. When it popped, the same forces inflated the real-estate boom of the '00s. It's all there in his "The Price of Inequality" and impeccably documented

You want to argue with a Nobel Laureate who was in the meetings? Go right ahead. Lotsa luck.

[cosmicone]

134. Go ahead -- parrot the R-W talking points

You have the same views as Ann Coulter and Pat Buchanan in this respect.

All that remains for you to say is "Clinton era boom was due to Reagan's policies' lingering effectiveness"

[hifiguy]

142. So Stiglitz, and Paul Krugman as well, are reichwing shills.

Rick Wolff, who is a Marxist influenced economist, is also wrong, just to boot. The things you learn that aren't true around here.

Your ignorance is pathetic, your personal attack meaningless.

[Hoyt]

146. Krugman on Glass-Steagall:

"It’s true that Glass-Steagall, a Great Depression–era law that forbade the mixing of securities trading and accepting FDIC-insured deposits under the same corporate roof, wouldn’t have prevented the 2008 implosion of Wall Street. Instead, it was extraordinarily high levels of leverage at investment banks like Lehman and Merrill Lynch, as well as the holding of huge portfolios of toxic subprime mortgages by deposit-taking banks like Bank of America, that were the fuel for the conflagration."
________________

Glass-Steagall was never the problem. The remainder of the paragraph above was: "But progressives were right to feel that Wall Street had been dangerously underregulated for too long and that the entire country was now paying the price." That's hard to disagree with.

[Hoyt]

137. Maybe a few quibbles, but pretty much agree.

[Truprogressive85]

141. Next time on "Bill Clinton defends"

inaction in Rwanda Genocide

or

defending Haitian farmer crops

[BlueStateLib]

149. Senator Warren disagrees with all of you

Bankers wrote Glass-Steagall, and Glass-Steagall only applied to 30% of the banks, Federal Reserve member banks only and none of the non-banks..

Senator Warren has said that one of the reasons she’s been pushing reinstating Glass-Steagall — even if it wouldn’t have prevented the financial crisis — is that it is an easy issue for the public to understand and “you can build public attention behind.”

She added that she considers Glass-Steagall more of a symbol of what needs to happen to regulations than the specifics related to the act itself.

When Senaror Warren was pressed about whether she thought the financial crisis or JPMorgan’s losses could have been avoided if Glass-Steagall were in place, she conceded: “The answer is probably ‘No’ to both.”

Bear Stearns, an investment bank that had nothing to do with commercial banking. Glass-Steagall would have been irrelevant. Lehman Brothers; it too was an investment bank with no commercial banking business and therefore wouldn’t have been covered by Glass-Steagall. Merrill Lynch, it too was an investment bank that had nothing to do with Glass-Steagall. American International Group, an insurance company that was also unrelated to Glass-Steagall. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which similarly, had nothing to do with Glass-Steagall.Countrywide Financial, the subprime lender, which made a lot of bad loans — completely permissible under Glass-Steagall. Golden West, a mortgage lender that saddled it with billions of dollars in bad loans, completely permissible under Glass-Steagall.

"Ironically, Glass-Steagall itself arose in the 1930's from commercial bankers' efforts to divert regulators' attention from other remedies. Small-town bankers throughout the country wanted government-guaranteed deposit insurance, while stronger big-city banks feared that government deposit insurance would put them at a competitive disadvantage. After all, deposits from the small-town banks were running off to big banks in money centers like New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles. Two decades ago, Donald Langevoort, now a law professor at Georgetown, showed that major bankers -- indeed, the leaders of First National City, the predecessor to Weill's Citibank -- proposed Glass-Steagall in lieu of deposit insurance. No big bank was at risk from trading securities then, but the big banks' investment-banking affiliates were not making money trading and underwriting securities during the Depression, so the banks were willing to surrender that part of their business. The irony is that Congress took up the big banks' offer to separate commercial and investment banking, but then enacted deposit insurance anyway."

From the correspondence between FDR and two of his friends, bankers James Perkins, chairman of National City Bank (now Citigroup) and Winthrop Aldrich, chairman of Chase (now JP Morgan Chase). More than any other Washington insider or progressive, it was Wall Street financier Winthrop Aldrich who helped FDR reform banking. In the process, Aldrich and Perkins saw a way for their banks to overtake a chief competitor, the immensely influential Morgan Bank (whose leaders were also friends of FDR), by robbing them of their ability to both underwrite securities and take deposits.

http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2012/05/21/reinstating-an-old-rule-is-not-a-cure-for-crisis/?_r=0?_r=0
http://www.thedeal.com/thedealeconomy/reconsidering-the-ghost-of-glass-steagall.php
http://fortune.com/2014/03/19/the-bankers-behind-fdr-and-the-glass-steagall-act/

[Hoyt]

152. Sounds lije Warren is admitting she's playing to myopic voters regarding G-S?

[sendero]

150. Just shut up Bill.....

... really, just shut the FUCK up.

[Daniel537]

171. Notice how much shit that needs to be fixed today had a Clinton hand in it.

Wall Street run amok, criminal justice reform, Unfair Trade deals, ending the embargo on Cuba, reforming immigration etc... Gee, Bill, all that Third-Wayiness really helped us out there, chief.

[sendero]

185. Multiple posts..

... trying to defend the indefensible. Yeah, it's pretty transparent.

Let's go over the Bill Clinton checklist once again shall we?

Repeal of Glass-Stegall (allowed FDIC backed banks to get in the financial gambling business, heads we win, tails the taxpayer loses)
Passage of the Commodity Futures Modernization Act (deregulated toxic waste derivative securities like MBS, that one has done plenty of damage but there is scads more to come)
Repeal of "welfare as we know it".
Passage of NAFTA (still has its defenders but most of them are paid to do so)
Opened trade floodgates with China ("free" trade, no quid pro quo of any kind, goodbye jobs)
Telecommunications Act (directly led to the farce of a MSM we have today by allowing toxic consolidation of media)

It would be hard to come up with a list that of any president's "accomplishments" that have had a more direct and palpable influence in getting our country to the mess it is in today. The long posts that remind me of a certain "pro" I have on ignore attempt to make the case that things like repealing Glass-Stegall weren't bad, it's LAUGHABLE.