Paulson admits deregulation has failed us all

[thecrow]

Source: Marketwatch.com

By MarketWatch
Last update: 12:05 p.m. EDT March 13, 2008Print E-mail RSS Disable Live Quotes
WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) -- You know things are very very bad on Wall Street when a guy like Henry Paulson -- Treasury secretary, solid Republican, and former Goldman Sachs CEO -- joins the crowd calling for more regulation over the financial markets.
Paulson spared no one in his criticism Thursday of the excesses of deregulation that has now created the worst global financial crisis in a generation, threatening the health of the U.S. economy, the savings of millions of Americans, and the survival of some of the biggest financial institutions in the world. See full story.
Wall Street and Washington both failed big time, he said. Wall Street invented new ways to make money by selling securities so complicated that no one could really follow which shell the pea was under. Fortunes were made on the paper Wall Street sold.
At the same time, Washington's watchdogs were dozing, tranquilized by the false assurance that Wall Street would police its own.


Read more: http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/paulsons-lament-deregulation-has-been/story.aspx?guid=%7B4AEF15AC%2D3966%2D4656%2D8108%2DC96712A88D68%7D

[no_hypocrisy]

1. What? What? I didn't hear it the first time! Say it again!

Louder.

Deregulation has failed us all. Among other things.

[AX10]

2. K & R!

[LisaM]

3. Did he mention Reagan?

Because I blame him for hoodwinking the American people on the myth of deregulation.

[9119495]

48. There is a great deal of blame to go around Lisa...

But yeah, about 90% belongs with Reagan. I like to periodically imagine the parallel Americas that would have emerged if republicans had gotten their way and deregulated everything as Reagan and others wished. Then I like to think of the one where Reagan never got elected...because his ideas were so stupid.

How could people who supposedly love the flag so much be so hateful towards the government (made up of our own citizens)?

[femrap]

68. What didn't they deregulate???? nt

[LuckyLib]

51. Yes. And it has ruined huge pieces of our economic sectors, i.e. the airline industry.

[StClone]

52. Fairness Doctrine Reagan killed in 1987.

Gave us that poisonous fuck head Limbaugh. That doped-up Sleazebaugh's spew was the grease that helped us slide into the gutter of dumbed down ass backward thinking. If deregulation (and tax cutting too) is so great why not eliminate highway speed limits and traffic signals and abolish the Highway Patrol!!? Makes as much sense!

[loudsue]

136. THAT, right there, started the death of our democracy.

Along with letting the bush family control what became the nazi CIA/mafia group that, to this day, makes 1/2 the CIA crooked as a dog's hind leg, while the other half is trying to protect our country. The bush family is the mafia group....Valerie Plame is the good part.

:kick:

[Karenina]

182. Hey , Loudsue!

Could you and anyone else who cares help me keep this kicked till we get at least 8,000 views? DEREGULATION is what got us into this mess. I screamed in my youth and am now :kick: ing in my old age in the vain hope that people will GET IT.

[pokercat999]

142. Exactly my question on taxes has always been: If cutting

taxes helps the economy so much and we get so much more revenue by cutting taxes why not eliminate taxes all together?.....think how much more revenue we would generate! It's like losing money on a product you are selling but making it up by selling more.

[vssmith]

116. Don't let Clinton off the hook

He signed Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act that overturned the a New Deal refom, Glass-Steagall Act, and allowed bank consolidation. Some economist blame the overturn of G-S for the sub-prime mess.

[Skittles]

141. "some economists say let's blame it on the Clenis"

:puke:

[wordpix]

175. oh yeah, Clenis with his large surpluses is to blame- go back to your freeper blog, OK?

geesh :puke:

[HDPaulG]

128. Started with Carter....

Deregulating trucking...Another Democrat...hmmmm

[Skittles]

140. you are really f***ing reaching n/t

[ekwhite]

133. Dig deeper. I blame Milton Friedman.

He was the brains behind the "Reagan Revolution." Reagan was just the mouthpiece. Friedman and his "Chicago Boys" have a hell of a lot to answer for.

[maseman]

4. Ring....ring...

Hello...the fucking clue-phone is ringing.

Jesus Herbert Christ...my 9 year old could tell you how stupid the fucking system is. No one knows where the money is, how it got there, who it's owed to, why they have it, etc. We have a $9 TRILLION debt in the US with no sight of reducing our deficits due to the war and heavy trade deficits.

I don't know what the silver lining is.

[Demeter]

6. The BFEE Going Broke--It Will Almost Be Worth It, If It Happens

[diane in sf]

46. Unfortunately the BFEE bought a lot of real stuff like Paraguay with their stolen

money.

[Demeter]

98. The Paraguayans Are Sure To Take It Back

when the mortgage is foreclosed!

[kelligesq]

169. Is there no extradition treaty with Paraguay ??

wondering beside the water, why he picked Paraguay. Oil? plans to grow sugar cane? what?

[ekwhite]

134. Excuse my ignorance, but what is BFEE? N/T

[NYC]

137. Bush Family Evil Empire.

:hi:

[ekwhite]

144. Oh - the Bush Crime Family N/T

[ChairmanAgnostic]

9. the 3 am phone, no less. I always thought that the dismantling

was intentional while the insiders ripped everyone else off, then hid their illgotten gains. Then, I thought that a dose of hyperinflation would reduce the real value of our debt to China something fierce. and finally I thought it was a combo of both.

now I am just confused - the normal state of affairs.

[Deny and Shred]

15. Wow, actually admitting a Republican IDEA was wrong. That doesn't

usually happen. Yes, toss RayGun under the bus where he belongs on the deregulation front.
As for the 3AM phone, McCain would just sleep right through it. Ronnie probably did as well.

[ChairmanAgnostic]

20. the first Secretary also told the truth & was tossed.

[AnneD]

58. Paul O'Neill....

The first Treasury Sec. and most honest man in the 1st GWBush admin. Highly quotable but this is the best-said when he wrote one of the first tell all books about W...."I'm an old guy, and I'm rich. And there's nothing they can do to hurt me."

[susu369]

164. O'Neill may not be as honest as you think

http://archive.salon.com/politics/feature/2001/06/07/oneill/print.html

[Nay]

90. Yeah, truthtelling by a Pub. He'll be booted out of office within the week.

[chknltl]

124. mCain would answer the 3AM call...

...then reach for his all important autographed copy of My Pet Goat.

[ekwhite]

145. Nah - McCain would pick up the phone and throw it against the wall

Bush would ask Laura how the darn thing worked.

[catzies]

104. I don't think you're confused. I think you just hit the nail on the head.

We still may be due to be hit with the hyperinflation. We just have to wait & see. :scared:

[femrap]

69. I was a stockbroker when

Derivatives were introduced in the '80's. All of us in office were just baffled...it was like betting on an option of an option...we decide we rather play roulette. And I read there are $45 tillion of them out there and no one really knows how to value them...I knew this would happen someday. Actually it's lasted longer than I thought....but with W allowing the corruption, it lasted an additional 7 years.

Get ready....:nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke:

[Robbien]

93. Exactly

Derivatives are just fluff involving bets. No intrinsic value to them at all is how I see it.

But our country's total economy is now resting on top of them.

It is a crazy world.

[Broadslidin]

117. Warren Buffett warns: "$516 Trillion derivative bubble is a disaster waiting to happen"

Reference:

Market Watch, March 10, 2008

Derivatives The New 'Ticking Bomb'
written by Paul B. Farrell

From the Market Watch report:

"Data on the five-fold growth of derivatives to $516 Trillion
in five years comes from the most recent survey by the
Bank of International Settlements,
the world's largest clearinghouse for central banks
in Basel, Switzerland."

[progressoid]

126. 516 Trillion ?

That's fucking nuts.

[femrap]

148. Holy shit....$516 Trillion.

I had read somewhere $45...OMG.

It's difficult to comprehend, isn't it? The deregulation of Greed.

It's too early in the day for a drink.

[napi21]

5. UH OH! A Shrub guy telling the truth? He'll probably be one

by April or May!

[mac2]

7. DA!

Twenty years too late Paulson. Goldman Sachs one of the Wall Street firms who coned us? Probably a target of Spitzers?

This firm should be dissolved and the leaders jailed for fraud.

Ah...Reagan was wrong? A guy with a "C" average from a less than top college know economics? Who lived off the tax payers for years?

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

8. !

[magellan]

10. The GOP wants us to know "mistakes were made".

As usual, they announce this just in time to look honorable but too late to do anything about it.

[The Backlash Cometh]

18. If only they would all go home and spend time with their family.

Meanwhile, their oldest sons are snorting everything including Windex, their middle sons, who they think are talented baseball players, belong to teams which have groupie girls who allow themselves to be double-teamed in the back room of some parentless house; and their youngest are becoming intolerant right-wing Christians because they hate being beat up by their older brothers and plan to grow up to be anything but them.

[swag]

11. Is he slapping the hidden hand?

[Lasher]

59. Now that is a first class swipe!

And right to the point.



Can't wait till this evening to see if Larry Kudlow's voice can possibly get any whinier.

[The Backlash Cometh]

12. Yeah baby. That's what I said in the last post.

Now if we can only get the media to spread this lesson across the nation, we may have a chance to reach a strategy to get out of it, that has some public support.

[Sagan]

13. nonsense.. it didn't fail at all...

Lots of good Republicans got rich and got out.. who cares what happens to everyone else? By Republican standards, deregulation has been a godsend. Money for nothing and scorched earth behind.

[Vinnie From Indy]

127. Bingo!

Deregulation did EXACTLY what it was supposed to do - make a tiny, powerful group of people unimagineably wealthy at the expense of 98% of the rest of America.

[thecrow]

14. I just have to add this paragraph from the end of the article

and I'll put it in BIG letters....

Paulson's proposals won't necessarily prevent a recurrence, but they are a humble recognition that the centerpiece of two decades of Republican economic policy have failed.

HA!!!!!!!

[The Backlash Cometh]

21. Shout it from the mountain tops!

Hallelujah, the bastards hit rock bottom. There will be no pleasure in this unless we can shove salt in their wounds. I, personally, want to hit them on the forehead and say, "you are, stupid, stupid, stupid!"

[MannyGoldstein]

16. Because Now The *Predator Class* Is Losing Money

When there was cash to be made from deregulation, the Predator Class was all for it. Now that the chickens are coming home to roost, the Predators want protection.

Eat the Rich.

[girl gone mad]

96. Yes. There's been no arguing with them..

over the past few years. Even as many investors were fleeing to better regulated European markets. Even as jobs were fleeing to more affordable locales. Even as wages stagnated and credit became a crutch. As long as they saw their net worth increasing, they didn't give a fuck.

[OKthatsIT]

158. How refreshing to hear such DIRECT and UNFILTERED TRUTH

Thank YOU!

"Predators" describes who these Representatives really work for in Washington since Reagan...TO A TEE!

[wordpix]

178. I like that term, *Predator Class*, that is really good, thanks.

[Supersedeas]

17. more news to be ignored by the Tweeties Russerts Brockaws and Williams of the GoP world

[Red Zelda]

25. Exactly...

the M$M will ignore this forever.

[Zorra]

19. Oh, we are sooo fucked. When a republican admits they made mistakes,

it is already a done deal. It's past already over.

We are the victims of economic terrorism, and those responsible need to be held accountable and be tried as terrorists for the damage they have inflicted on us and our country.

[leftrightwingnut]

110. Quick! Get the pitchforks and torches! I'll bring the rope.

Seriously, though, you're right. There are quite a few people who should be spending a long time behind bars for this.

[OKthatsIT]

159. WE TRIED TO TELL YOU ~ ! ~ ! ~ !

But you kept railing back at US that we were insane conspiracy theorists

And now, FAUX NEWS and CNN and MSNBC are doing a media PSYOPS telling YOU that we, the TRUTH RESEARCHERS, should be SPIED ON, taken away and tortured....or imprisoned without a trial.

DEMS NEED TO APOLOGIZED TO 'TRUTH SEEKERS'!

For years we've been trying to tell you THE PREDATORS were the BANKSTERS/Globalist. For YEARS, we've been warning YOU that these BANKSTERS intend to take the USA DOWN.

SO here it is... Whenever you're ready to listen, we'll be here. WE AREN'T GOING AWAY.

[Zorra]

180. Dude - you are responding to a person that stopped doing business with

financial institutions on the day after the SCOTUS appointed Bu*h to the position of head of state, and soon after moved to an undisclosed location outside the US.

[Nickster]

22. What!? Is he some kind of Commie! /sarcasm

[housewolf]

23. This is the MOST IMPORTANT piece of news I've seen

in a long, long time.

Thanks for posting.

[thecrow]

118. You're welcome!

[Hugin]

24. "survival of some of the biggest financial institutions in the world"

This is what put the 'crisis' in there... The other two have been trashed for years.

[twiceshy]

32. I think this is too big to bail out........

Finally, because of the leverage of derivatives there is not enough "money" in the world to bail out the trillions in losses. It's going over the cliff, my only question is if they can hold it off till the election in November.

[greyghost]

49. That's what they're desperately attempting to do.

[DinahMoeHum]

26. Tee hee! Serves them right for voting Republikkkan.

:evilfrown:

[liam_laddie]

31. Love the term republikkkan

:bounce:
Can I please use a variant - "republiKKKlan" for personal use? TIA...

[DinahMoeHum]

38. Of course - help yourself.

You might also want to consider: GOoPers

:evilgrin:

[Kolesar]

27. It was a fraud/conspiracy to package loans that did not meet the standards

of Fannie Mae, etc. I don't know if regulations would have caught that. Ohio Attorney General Marc Dann is investigating it...:)

[wordpix]

176. "small fortunes...to persuade people to borrow more than they could ever hope to pay back"

I thank my lucky stars I didn't fall for getting a large mortgage loan a couple of yrs. ago when I was thinking of moving closer to my new workplace. I just thought the price of homes was way too high for me: $425K for a 2 br. condo and about the same for a small fixer upper house with tiny yard. I stuck with my nearly paid-off condo and rented a tiny place close to work for M-F. Good move.

[Initech]

28. I've been saying this for fucking YEARS!

Sure I dont have the same power that someone like this guy has but finally someone else agrees with me!

[snappyturtle]

82. I think that many of us here, if we haven't said, have thought it.

These people in charge are in La-La-Land most of the time.

[Initech]

103. I swear its all because of right-wing hate radio.

Reagan killing the fairness doctrine and giving that fat, oxycontin addicted asshole airtime is what did it.

[OnionPatch]

123. I hear evidence of it all the time.

RWers I talk to at work, around town, etc. all quote Rush Limbaugh line for line in every political conversation. These days radio is just propaganda for the Republican party and so many people have fallen for it.

[Initech]

125. Yup.

I tell ya when that fat slob's heart explodes out of his chest from an oxycontin / Viagra overdose, the better off we will be.

[lark]

150. I think this was a totally planned disaster

Destroying our (and the world's if possible) economy is part of their plan. The uber rich and crony capitalist will be the only ones left standing, and they can then dictate to the rest of everybody else - us serfs - the conditions under which they will be allowed to live. Notice how the dollar is being driven down, major corporations offshoring their assets and paying no taxes and still getting favored treatment for contracts,lowering taxes on the rich during a time of so-called war, destroying the just getting on it's feet family with predatory lending, then helping the criminal lenders instead of the innocent victim's, jacking up the price of oil which leads to worldwide inflation by attacking Iraq and ensuring a decreased production from them, next Iran. None of this makes sense, except part of a planned offensive. They are horrible, nasty, people, but I don't think for a minute that they got caught off-guard on this.

[formercia]

29. Paulson agrees to give all the Millions he made to charity.

Made you look!!! :rofl:

A cold day in Hell.

[pdefalla]

30. Washington was not dozing, they were complicit

"At the same time, Washington's watchdogs were dozing, tranquilized by the false assurance that Wall Street would police its own."

This is an attempt to excuse the Bush Administration by saying they were only guilty of not paying attention when in fact they were working hand and hand with Wall Street to make this happen. Deregulation is, and has always been the Republican equivalent of laissez faire. The Republican administration has been working avidly to dismantle any regulations on corporations in two ways. First, they corrupt the regulatory agencies by appointing industry agents to run them, and secondly, they pass laws (clear skies, healthy forests, etc) that free industry from prosecution for violating safety (mines), health (HMO's, pollution), consumer (bankruptcy, sub-prime), and privacy (telecom) laws. Further, they stack the Federal courts with industry-friendly judges so that lawsuits that challenge industry go nowhere. Millions upon millions of corporate dollars flow through lobbyists into Washington to make sure that this system is perpetuated. Considering all this, Paulson's comments are truly remarkable. I doubt if much will be done about it, and I suspect that Paulson will lose his job soon, joining Fallon and so many others....

[Karenina]

33. A hearty BINGO, pdefalla!

And WELCOME TO DU! :toast:

[yowzayowzayowza]

44. Zactly.

Nuthin but more whitewash.

[greyghost]

50. Absolutely!

[DLnyc]

129. Yes, very well said.

Deregulation was coldly calculated, and very successful, theft. Trouble is, looks like there's not much left to steal now.

Sounds to me like Paulson is hard at work managing the image--meanwhile, true to form, not one person in the psychotic * administration is looking at any serious policy shifts. Basically he's saying, "The old ranchers, before I came on, apparently let 300 billion head of cattle out of the barn (or maybe it was 800 billion). Also, 500 trillion virtual cattle were created, paid for and then also got out of the barn, somehow. But we are hard at work, I assure you, painting that big barn door a spiffy shade of red, and we have asked a committee of cattle to draw up plans for someday closing the barn door."

The silver lining? Sooner or later, things might get bad enough that people will stop trusting their fates to the altruism of a bunch of multinational monopoly corporations for a while. Maybe.

[ekwhite]

135. Yep, they have known what would happen at least since Chile

Pinochet screwed the country, but made a few elites very, very rich. 9/11 gave the Bush administration the cover to do the same thing to our country, right up to the torture. The only thing missing is the soccer stadiums, but after 20 years of Republican rule, the American people were already too beaten down to stand up to the government.

[ronnie624]

147. That line was very conspicuous.

Your summary is dead on.

[fascisthunter]

152. yes they were

[underpants]

179. David Brooks used the same language--hmmmmm coincidence?

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/18/opinion/18brooks.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

Who’s to blame?

Who’s not to blame? The mortgage brokers were out of control. Regulators were asleep.

[BlooInBloo]

34. He's out.

[Judi Lynn]

35. Wow! Made the day seem totally worthwhile! Thanks. n/t

[Maine-i-acs]

36. Update, 4 hrs later: Paulson announces retirement (NT)

[Orrex]

41. To spend more time with his family, no doubt.

:rofl:

[Kingofalldems]

37. What do we tell the freepers?

:wow:

[Javaman]

39. uh oh, is that a bus coming alone with paulsons name on it? nt

[stubtoe]

40. Music to my ears! At last they admit it. Reagan's chickens are finally coming home

to roost and poop all over the predator class MannyGoldstein mentions abovethread.

This is sweet, sweet, sweet and almost worth the enormous pain it's costed the rest of us.

Republican financial model is DEAD at last.

[Mountainman]

42. When the investor class can't get a good return the repukes step of and call for regulation.

Mean while the rest of us lose what little wealth we have, our homes and 401Ks.

[spanone]

43. seems to have helped the prison business just fine

[groovedaddy]

Does this mean that the looting is finished? I doubt it.

They'll stay at it until there's nothing left.
They went through this with Teddy Roosevelt and the Progressive Party. The Repubs decided then that they were the party of Big Business and would fight regulation of business every step of the way. By God, they meant it. This blather is just cover for an inside job.

[ajamo]

45. Paulson

He will be retiring next

[defendandprotect]

47. Unregulated capitalism is merely organized crime --- as we well know ---

Capitalism isn't about competititon -- it's about killing the competitition ---

It's a "ridiculous King-of-the-Hill-System" which whittles down competition until we have monopoly and it looks like about now those few companies left want the protection of REGULATION to protect themselves . . .

Washington and Wall Street didn't "fail" --- this is corruption at the highest levels ---
and it's paid off like bank robbing for the few who are cashing in on it ---

Unregulated capitalism which is merely organized crime ----

[donkeyotay]

54. Corruption at the highest levels. But excess liquidity and political access

have a history of helping each other out. This one got underway in earnest when the Republican Revolution swore up and down that letting business buy influence was a good thing. They certainly were abetted by the dems, who were cowed by the sheer ferocity of the Right, but we can thank the Republican Party for the crisis we're about to live through.

Yes, this is a success story. The Repos got their "free" market. No one was Left standing in their way. Congrats. Without trial, those most culpable will go untouched.

[defendandprotect]

66. Capitalism is the license to exploit . . . to monopolize . . . we have to move on ---

We can do better than a ridiculous "King-of-the-Hill-System" . . .
intended not to encourage legitimate competititon, but to kill the competititon.

The Republicans didn't create or get a "free" market --- they got access to looting our Treasury,
to stealing from the public.

While also attaching themselves more firmly to government welfare --- draining taxpayers in bailouts, etal --- theft and embezzlements of banks.

[DLnyc]

130. The Repo party. I like it.

Remebered down the ages for repossessing our homes, pensions, farms, clothes, health, food and finally cardboard boxes and rags.

[donkeyotay]

149. I think it's going to catch on in 2008. nt

[Deny and Shred]

55. I agree. Capitalism only works when there is competition

The goal of each firm is to eliminate the competition.

Regulations are there to prevent monopolies.

Unregulated markets lead to fewer players who carve up their territories

These Robber Barons then seek to maximize profit, a different point on the curve entirely from efficiency.

The rest of the people, well, ...

[DLnyc]

131. Yes, ". . . fewer players who carve up their territories," and then

buy control over government, alter regulation to favor the (few) surviving mega-corps, thus locking in their advantage and obviating any inconvenient need to try to produce better products for less money.

[jimshoes]

53. Sounds like the players got played

and lost a shitload of green. They hate that. I laugh at them. Have a can of beans for dinner chumps. They got fucked by the system they put in place. BwaaaaaaaaHahahahahahahahahahah.

[mckara]

56. Can You Say President Obama?

Somebody needs to clean up the messes of the Reagan-Bush-Clinton-Bush years.

I know that person: President Barack Obama! :patriot:

[N4457S]

57. I Told My Wife...

...five years ago when we moved to California that all of this would come crashing down, and then the Feds would go back in and regulate the living shit out of the economy.

Well, guess what? That's precisely where we are headed.

When it happens, a lot of those ridiculously priced real estate values will suddenly fall back to Earth. That means a lot of formerly fat cat Baby Boomers looking to sell their homes to a Generation X or Generation Y sucker for a million bucks won't be able to do so. Even if the kids have the requisite FICO score, the banks won't fund the loans. I've had two separate house deals fall through in the past two weeks because the owner couldn't get out of the house to rent it to me...his other deal is stuck in escrow because they can't get funding for the loan.

This is some serious shit, and the only way we're ever gonna truly resolve these issues is to let the recession come and burn itself out.

When Ditech started advertising 125 percent mortgages, I knew something very bad was going to happen. So, here we are.

Do yourselves a favor and don't buy ANYTHING you don't have to buy for about the next two years.

[Grinchie]

60. Who Started the De-Regulation Process?

Repeal of the Acts
On November 12, 1999, President Bill Clinton signed into law the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, which repealed the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933. One of the effects of the repeal is it allowed commercial & investment banks to consolidate. Economist Robert Kuttner has criticized the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act as contributing to the 2007 subprime mortgage financial crisis <1>.

[Grinchie]

62. Goldman Sachs & Co - Experts in their field with "Years of Experience"

Robert E. Rubin
(1995 - 1999)
When President William Jefferson Clinton swore in Robert E. Rubin (b. 1938) as the 70th Secretary of the Treasury, he was already one of the most knowledgeable and best prepared leaders of finance to assume the office. Before entering public service, Mr. Rubin worked for twenty-six years at Goldman Sachs & Co., one of Wall Street’s venerable investment firms, where he rose to the position of Co-Chairman. He was originally appointed by President Clinton to be Assistant to the President for Economic Policy and to serve as the nation’s first director of the National Economic Council (1993-1995), which coordinated Administration economic policy throughout the Clinton administration. With his vast experience in financial markets and collegial temperament, he helped President Clinton, and his economic team developed an economic policy based on vigorous deficit reduction, global open markets, and investments in education, training and the environment. This program helped to spark and sustain the longest economic expansion in the nation’s history to date, transforming the nation’s budgetary position from deficit to surplus, and produce the lowest national rates of unemployment in decades.

After succeeding Lloyd Bentsen as Treasury Secretary, Mr. Rubin faced threats to the nation’s creditworthiness and to the stability of the global financial system. Secretary Rubin used his statutory authority to safeguard the Federal government’s finances and make timely payments of the Federal debt when the Congress did not raise the debt limit during an extensive budgetary confrontation. During his tenure, financial crises flared in Mexico and Asia posing real risks to global financial stability. Secretary Rubin led efforts–with the IMF, Federal Reserve and others–that contained both disruptions, stopping both crises from overwhelming the global financial system, protecting the American economic expansion, and spurring Mexico and Asia toward economic recovery.

Mr. Rubin’s tenure at Treasury was extraordinarily varied. He spoke out about growing "interdependence" among nations and urged Americans to appreciate the benefits of increasing economic integration in the post-Cold War era. He worked forcefully throughout his tenure for fiscal discipline and open trade, while strongly advocating policies to provide greater skills and support for workers and low income Americans, particularly in the inner city. He strongly supported aid for developing nations and acted to reform the architecture of the global financial system. He worked to reform the IRS and for financial modernization. He also championed the priorities of Treasury’s law enforcement agencies, including policies to redesign the nation’s currency to thwart counterfeiting, decrease the accessibility of guns to former felons and to minors, enhance Presidential security, interdict drugs at US borders, and combat money laundering. Upon Mr. Rubin’s retirement, President Clinton called him the "greatest secretary of the Treasury since Alexander Hamilton."

[mckara]

65. You Are Correct!

Another instance when the Clintons should have fallen on their swords because...

They once again, SOLD-OUT TO SPECIAL INTERESTS for their personal benefit, and thereby, SOLDOUT the PEOPLE!

It is plain for voters to see...

If you want more of that---YOU ARE NUTS!!!!!!

[PittPoliSci]

72. it started way before that.

[Zorra]

74. Wrong. Ronald Reagan started the deregulation process.

Here it is in simple form:

The Reagan Deregulation Program

Federal requirements that set maximum interest rates on savings accounts were phased out. This eliminated the advantage previously held by savings banks.
Checking accounts could now be offered by any type of bank.
All depository institution could now borrow from the fed in time of need, a privilege that had been reserved for commercial banks. In return all banks had to place a certain % of their deposits in the fed. This gave the FED more control and stabilized state banks.
Garn - St. Germain Act of 1982 allowed savings banks to now issue credit cards, make non residential real estate loans and commercial loans; actions previously only allowed to commercial banks.
The Effect of Deregulation - The S&L Crisis

Deregulation practically eliminated the distinction between commercial and savings banks.
Deregulation caused a rapid growth of savings banks and S&L's that now made all types of non homeowner related loans. Now that S%L's could tap into the huge profit centers of commercial real estate investments and credit card issuing many entrepreneurs looked to the loosely regulated S&L's as a profit making center.
As the eighties wore on the economy appeared to grow. Interest rates continued to go up as well as real estate speculation. The real estate market was in what is known as a "boom" mode. Many S&L's took advantage of the lack of supervision and regulations to make highly speculative investments, in many cases loaning more money then they really should.
When the real estate market crashed, and it did so in dramatic fashion, the S&L's were crushed. They now owned properties that they had paid enormous amounts of money for but weren't worth a fraction of what they paid. Many went bankrupt, losing their depositors money. This was known as the S&L Crisis.
In 1980 the US had 4,600 thrifts, by 1988 mergers and bankruptcies left 3000. By the mid 1990's less than 2000 survived.
The S&L crisis cost about 600 Billion dollars in "bailouts." This is 1500 dollars from every man woman and child in the US.
In summary, the S&L crisis was caused by deregulation which led to high interest rates that then collapsed. Other causes included inadequate capital and defrauding shorthanded government regulatory agencies (less regulators and inspectors).

http://www.socialstudieshelp.com/Eco_Deregulation.htm

[DemReadingDU]

92. Ernest Partridge: A Failed Experiment

6/5/07

On January 20, 1981, in his first inaugural address, Ronald Reagan told the nation: "Government is not a solution to our problem, government is the problem."

Thus began a grand experiment: Release the American economy from the bonds of government regulation. Individual enterprise and initiative, the profit motive, the free market and open competition will usher in a new birth of freedom and a new era of unprecedented prosperity.

"It's morning in America."

Twenty-six years later, what do we have? A dismantled and "outsourced" industrial base, an impoverished work force, a nine trillion dollar debt burden upon future generations, a captive media that deprives the public of essential news as it issues outright lies, a degradation of education and scientific research, a trashing of the Constitution and its guaranteed Bill of Rights, a seemingly endless war with no prospect (or even definition) of victory, and the contempt of the peoples and governments of the civilized world.

The grand experiment has failed, and we are just beginning to realize the enormous costs of that failure.

How did it happen? It happened because the core dogmas of this so-called “conservatism” – the possibility and desirability of an ungoverned society, the superior “wisdom” of an unconstrained free market, the suitability of simple greed as a driving force of society – were fated from the start to fail the test of “real world” application.

more...
http://www.crisispapers.org/essays7p/experiment.htm

[HowHasItComeToThis]

138. BINGO FOR YOU

CRIMINALS ALL

[fascisthunter]

153. Notice no Rebuttal from that poster. I Guess He or She Agrees with You (nt)

[BrklynLiberal]

76. Didn't he also allow the consolidation of the media????

[Roland99]

122. That image in your sig caused some weird pop-up in my Firefox browser.

Pointing to this IP:

66.197.79.172

[BrklynLiberal]

146. It is an animated Eye of Horus...a tribute to one of our late DUers, Kephra.

Do not know what that IP addy is ...

[elleng]

95. 'Deregulation,

a term which gained widespread currency in the period 1970-2000, can be seen as a process by which governments remove, reduce, or simplify restrictions on business and individuals with the intent of encouraging the efficient operation of markets. . .

The experience of the United States offers a broad view of modern deregulation, as many service industries were effectively deregulated beginning in 1971.'

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deregulation

[girl gone mad]

99. Nice try.

But you Republican apologists are skipping ahead a decade and conveniently ignoring who wrote Gramm-Leach-Bliley. Learn your history a bit better and maybe you will understand how Clinton earned the nickname "best Republican President ever".

[Sam Ervin jret]

61. Now if we can just get them to admit the abandonment of OSHA and EPA standards are killing us all

we can all die happily ever after.

Or maybe try to stop this colossal fu@& up?

[Tight_rope]

63. Damnit....Follow the money and start throwing people in jail...Start with Bush and Cheney

Simple as that!

[nbcouch]

64. Chickens coming home to roost

"the excesses of deregulation"

That's an extraordinary phrase ... the myth we were sold by the supply-siders and other corporatists in the late 70s and into the Reagan 80s was that all government regulation is inherently bad, foisted upon the business community by ignorant bureaucrats looking to justify their existence, and that eliminating the burdens of regulation would lead inevitably to a free market paradise in no time flat. This of course was a Big Lie.

The truth is that most government regulations imposed on businesses were imposed for very specific and legitimate reasons, mostly having to do with the excesses of capitalism and more or less free markets. Regulation does not always work - it can in fact lead to negative unintended consequences - but the vast majority of the time regulation is not imposed on business for no good reason.

This leads us logically to the conclusion that willy-nilly deregulation for deregulation's sake will likely produce bad effects in the long run, as the bad behaviors are allowed to creep back in - and this is exactly what we have seen happen "in the field," so to speak.

A great many banking regulations, e.g. the prohibition against banks investing in the stock market, were responses to the excesses that led or contributed to the Great Depression - something we should not want to revisit.

[HCE SuiGeneris]

67. k n r

[katty]

70. OMG - well too late

[PittPoliSci]

71. no shit. that's why regulations were put into effect in the first place.

[RoccoR5955]

73. Within a week Paulson will be...

:kick:
...resigning to "spend more time with his family," because he didn't have his head shoved up Bushco, Inc.'s butt far enough!

[brentspeak]

75. Gosh, no one, I mean no one, could have possibly predicted that deregulation would screw us all.

:sarcasm:

[intheflow]

132. Yeah, who could've seen that one coming?

:eyes: Reminds me of the Bush administration being so surprised by 9/11 and how badly Iraq's gone.

[tired]

77. No Shit!?

What was his first clue?

[Indenturedebtor]

78. Obama should use this in the GE

Force McCain to defend pissing on your head economics and either vow to ramp up regs on business or to dissavow the entire republican party line...

would force a HUGE wedge in the puke party imho and highlight McCains' stupidity.

[leftrightwingnut]

108. Hear, hear! I'll second that. n/t

[phantom power]

79. These people are like fucking 3-year-olds.

[guitar man]

80. I remember when freight was deregulated

My Dad was a Teamster, over the road driver for LTL freight carriers. He worked 70 hours a week and we had a good life because of it. When freight was deregulated, I remember him getting his letter of layoff and talking to his supervisor about when he might expect a call back to work. The news was grim and that was the first time I can remember ever seeing tears in his eyes.

It pretty much financially destroyed our family for the next several years, and in many ways, he never did recover from it. Why does it take so long for us to learn these lessons? What will it take to change it?

[whistle]

81. That's fine, so let's reverse it and make those responsible for the failure

...pay for it, namely the wealthiest 15%

[Jacobin]

83. Fucking Thieves. Its what the Glass-Steigel Act was created for

after 1929.

And the farking RW has all but dismantled it, leading to a melt down of our financial system.

It is going to get far far worse before its better

[TML]

114. You know who repealed it, don't you?

Bill Clinton, 1999. Let's chalk that up to Hillary's "experience" while we're at it.

[magellan]

139. The Republican majority in Congress passed the Act that repealed it

Yes, Clinton signed it into law, and damn him for doing so. But he wouldn't have had it to sign without the Ayn Rand free-market loving Republicans. Who, by the way, began dismantling The Glass-Steagall Act decades earlier. It was so rotted away by the 90s that financial groups started merging in defiance of its prohibitions. The Bank Modernization Act made those mergers legal.

Now why would the Repubs even consider writing a law to undo the Glass-Steagall Act? And since it was such a stupid thing to do, why didn't the Repub-majority put the prohibitions from the Glass-Steagall Act back in place under Bush**? Those are the questions you really ought to be asking yourself.

[TML]

151. Why did Clinton sign it?

That is the question we should be asking. It's part of Hillary's "experience" and a legit question, especially since she get a lot of contributions from these very same financial institutions.

Don't make this about Bush. This is all about the Clintons.

[magellan]

154. LOL

Look, I'm an independent who isn't enamored of EITHER party or its candidates, so you're wasting your time trying to sell me on your "single bullet" BS. The agendas that got us where we are today were contributed to by BOTH sides of the aisle. You don't believe me, fine, but reality doesn't change just because you choose to ignore or cherry-pick it.

Do you care about facts? Or are you too busy waving your battle flag -- whichever one it is -- to appreciate knowledge except as you can twist it to shore up your own opinion?

[TML]

155. The fact is he signed it

If he had vetoed it and it passed Congress anyway, that's a different story. So we are discussing the fact. He signed it, and it's part of Hillary's "experience". No disputing that fact, and singling out the one act that would have shown leadership is not cherry picking the facts. That's taking an honest look at a lack of leadership when we needed it.

[magellan]

156. You're hopeless

And a good example of why this country is in the crapper.

[TML]

157. You are

You won't even answer a simple question without asking another.

[magellan]

160. "Don't make this about Bush. This is all about the Clintons."

That's what you wrote, an extraordinary oversimplification that isn't worthy of an answer. It's the kind of thinking that never solves complicated problems, but only exacerbates them.

[TML]

161. It gets to the root of the problem

He could have said "no". He didn't. This is part of Hillary's "experience". You can't cherry pick her accomplishments. End of story.

[magellan]

162. It doesn't even begin to get to the root of the problem

...as I explained a couple of replies ago. End of story.

[navarth]

84. thanks for this k & r n/t

[kirby]

85. CODE WORD: Gov't Bailout coming!!!

He is just priming the public for an upcoming Gov't Bailout of these corporate criminals.

[Deny and Shred]

89. Already happening. $200 billion in US Treasuries to buy sub-prime derivatives

http://outdoorsbest.zeroforum.com/zerothread?id=721571&postid=8920660

The Fed also said it was launching Friday a series of term repurchase transactions that are expected to reach 100 billion dollars.

The repo transactions will be conducted as 28-day term repurchase agreements in which lenders may elect pledge collateral of Treasury, agency debt, or agency mortgage-backed securities.

[kirby]

91. I saw that...

and posted about it the other day. I think there is still much more to come.

[benld74]

86. Name me ONE deregulation that DID NOT FAIL !!!!!!!!!

[marias23]

87. Lets Here It for the Reagan Revolution!

[stubtoe]

101. (kazoos playing Taps)

n/t

[lovuian]

88. DeRegulation (Republican Mantra ) is THIEVES Go Ahead

and steal this is Capitalism's death gasps and Socialism is the wave of the future...

The Republican party is a dead party people will be screaming for accountability

Negligence isn't going to be an excuse

[wordpix]

177. ain't that the sad truth---and accountability IS the word of the moment

[Lydia Leftcoast]

94. I could have told them that 25 years ago

:eyes:

and I'm not even an economist. Which may be why I knew that deregulation would be a disaster.

[cliss]

97. Now with this in mind,

recall that Hank PAULSEN made $1 billion dollars off of the subprime mortgage "investments". That's 1 Billion.

[donkeyotay]

100. And he's got a little conflict of interest.

One day he's working for Goldman Sachs, the next day he's at Treasury, allegedly working for us. After he patches up the banks with our debt, he'll go back to working for them. It really is an outrage. Greenspan also went to work for some hedge fund that he helped make rich with the policies that make us poor. I hope they go belly up. I hope they go to jail. I hope that someday someway at least a few of the members of the crime wave that George was president of pay for what they did.

[kitfalbo]

102. Marketwatch

Deregulation can work. But it takes responsible people, and often laws to help make a clear definition of what is responsible. And in case that fails the laws should come down like the hammer of thor and smack them down.

Sadly it didn't work. Government controlled assets don't always work too... but the abuse outside of the government always seems worse because there is at least a small chance we can vote out the suckers that caused the last mess in that situation.

Having watched this and the fleecing of US/Iraq in the war has caused me to be extremely disappointed in both the people who do this and our government for a lack of control and awareness and in the end the responsibility to punish.

[Canuckistanian]

105. The "invisible hand" has bitch-slapped America

The theory of the Invisible Hand states that if each consumer is allowed to choose freely what to buy and each producer is allowed to choose freely what to sell and how to produce it, the market will settle on a product distribution and prices that are beneficial to the all individual members of a community, and hence to the community as a whole.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invisible_hand

The problem is that the consumer is NOT FREE TO CHOOSE what to buy when a few large corporations have a monopoly on what is being sold at a reasonable price. And they are able to offer such reasonable prices by purely predatory tactics such as an immense buying power, a lack of social consciousness and an almost total absence of regulatory controls.

This economy is something that Adam Smith never imagined.

[leftrightwingnut]

106. Free markets trend toward monopoly -- then they aren't free any longer.

[leftrightwingnut]

107. Free markets are self-correcting...

They surge into hyper-speculation and then crash into depression. See? Self-correcting.

[Doctor_J]

113. sounds more like self-destructing

of course the upper 1% of the rich in this country have enjoyed the anarchy immensely.

[Joe Chi Minh]

109. These few words say it all, don't they?

"The housing bubble wasn't a flaw; it was a predictable outcome of a system that rewarded smart people small fortunes for conjuring up ways to persuade people to borrow more than they could ever hope to pay back. All the profits were taken off the table quickly, but the staggering costs are only now being paid by homeowners, shareholders, builders and the rest of society."

If only we, in the UK, had people in positions of leadership who, at least, had the integrity to be able to see the writing on the wall.

[applegrove]

111. No Shit Sherlock!

[Doctor_J]

112. Whoa. what's next - the NRA admitting that "A gun in every hand" hasn't prevented us from

being taken over by fascists?

Wonder what * and McShame will have to say about this little bit of truth.

[sarcasmo]

115. Thanks, Ronnie Raygun.

Thanks, Wall Street for your shell game.

[Unsane]

119. It's going to take another Great Depression

to get us back to New Dealism.

[SunnyNobility]

120. Paulson admits deregulation has failed us all

Speaking the truth as a revolutionary act! More of this please.

[Gamey]

121. Full of remorse

Devoid of kicking ass.

[Historic NY]

143. St. Ronnie got it wrong from Main St. to Wall St............

de-reg is bad when it runs a muck.

[goodgd_yall]

163. Reagan and his trajectory

As Obama reminded us, "He put us on a fundamentally different path because the country was ready for it. I think they felt like with all the excesses of the 1960s and 1970s and government had grown and grown but there wasn't much sense of accountability in terms of how it was operating. I think people, he just tapped into what people were already feeling, which was we want clarity we want optimism, we want a return to that sense of dynamism and entrepreneurship that had been missing." "America" seemed to want it and we keep getting it in our leaders.

Time to go back to regulation. This Democrat would be very happy to see that.

[spanone]

165. the bu$h* economic policies are the same as his reaction to katrina.....nil

[Karenina]

166. And this thread needs to stay at the top!

:kick:

[Neshanic]

167. First admit, then set up taxpayer bailout. Even when saying you will not.

[Karenina]

168. KEEP THIS KICKED!!!

:kick:

[Earth Bound Misfit]

170. I Agree--Kick

:kick:

[Karenina]

171. ttt

[Karenina]

172. bttt

[Karenina]

173. I just want people to read and bookmark this

Then let's see how long it takes before Paulson quits to "spend more time with his family."

[Karenina]

174. . .

[Karenina]

181. Last kick.

BTW MW is an excellent site for those interested in the machinations.