Comments on: Bill Clinton, Glass-Steagall and the Current Financial and Mortgage Crisis, Part Two of an InDepth Investigative Report http://thestrangedeathofliberalamerica.com/bill-clinton-glass-steagall-and-the-current-financial-and-mortgage-crisis-part-two-of-an-indepth-investigative-report.html A Netzine About Ideas Mon, 08 Mar 2010 18:20:02 -0700 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.1 hourly 1 By: Randall http://thestrangedeathofliberalamerica.com/bill-clinton-glass-steagall-and-the-current-financial-and-mortgage-crisis-part-two-of-an-indepth-investigative-report.html/comment-page-1#comment-12628 Randall Sun, 31 Jan 2010 02:25:27 +0000 http://thestrangedeathofliberalamerica.com/?p=377#comment-12628 Looking at the timeline of recessions and depression in the US you can see this is history repeating itself. See Ohio Insurance failure, Savings and loan Failure and others. Usually caused by influential businesses effecting changes in regulations that were put there as a result of previous greed related theft. The Crisis, and the resulting bailout was the predictable result of the repeal and the HOPE that either parties current representatives will somehow do the right thing is foolish. Its time for a real change, elect a president outside of the party system who is only responsible to the people as the founders intended, see G.Washington, letters 1789 Looking at the timeline of recessions and depression in the US you can see this is history repeating itself. See Ohio Insurance failure, Savings and loan Failure and others. Usually caused by influential businesses effecting changes in regulations that were put there as a result of previous greed related theft. The Crisis, and the resulting bailout was the predictable result of the repeal and the HOPE that either parties current representatives will somehow do the right thing is foolish.
Its time for a real change, elect a president outside of the party system who is only responsible to the people as the founders intended, see G.Washington, letters 1789

]]> By: liberalamerican http://thestrangedeathofliberalamerica.com/bill-clinton-glass-steagall-and-the-current-financial-and-mortgage-crisis-part-two-of-an-indepth-investigative-report.html/comment-page-1#comment-12620 liberalamerican Thu, 28 Jan 2010 18:14:51 +0000 http://thestrangedeathofliberalamerica.com/?p=377#comment-12620 Tom, It seems like I keep having to repeat this over and over again. But for the record Bill Clinton was far from being the worst President in American history and he is not the sole cause for the repeal of Glass-Steagall. I believe his successor was the one who allowed the abuses that occurred after the repeal of Glass-Steagall to get out of control and then rewarded the abusers with his so-called bailout. And this is only the start of a long list of Bush screw-ups. As for Obama, the guy has only been in office a year and already people are writing him off because he is having difficulty dealing with the mess Bush left him. Herbert Hoover at least only left FDR with a Depression, George W left his successor with two wars, a depression, and the most heavily-tilted playing field since William McKinley. Tom,

It seems like I keep having to repeat this over and over again. But for the record Bill Clinton was far from being the worst President in American history and he is not the sole cause for the repeal of Glass-Steagall.

I believe his successor was the one who allowed the abuses that occurred after the repeal of Glass-Steagall to get out of control and then rewarded the abusers with his so-called bailout. And this is only the start of a long list of Bush screw-ups.

As for Obama, the guy has only been in office a year and already people are writing him off because he is having difficulty dealing with the mess Bush left him. Herbert Hoover at least only left FDR with a Depression, George W left his successor with two wars, a depression, and the most heavily-tilted playing field since William McKinley.

]]> By: Doni http://thestrangedeathofliberalamerica.com/bill-clinton-glass-steagall-and-the-current-financial-and-mortgage-crisis-part-two-of-an-indepth-investigative-report.html/comment-page-1#comment-12618 Doni Thu, 28 Jan 2010 16:05:57 +0000 http://thestrangedeathofliberalamerica.com/?p=377#comment-12618 IMHO, we don't do a very good job of learning from history. We had a junk bond crisis and recently nobody seemed to recognize that bundled subprime mortgages are no different (except rating agencies gave them AAA ratings instead of BB - and shouldn't 'junk' or 'subprime' really be rated C, D, or F?). There was a blow-up in the mutual fund world - many commercial banks were able to convert their in-house collective funds (governed by bank regulation) to mutual funds (governed by SEC) and ultimately did not understand all the risks and regulations. Now we have 'funds' that are feeders into multi-billion hedge funds and private equity funds, but the investing public does not know that their supposedily safe investment is flowing into a high risk/reward situation. In the 1920s people borrowed on margin to invest never thinking market would go down; recently this has been housing. Today, even after Enron and WorldCom where employees lost all their life savings due to heavy company holdings, there is still 'silo' investing - example: banks and companies that invested heavily in Lehman and/or Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac are being taken over or closed by regulators. The current world market is multi-layered and multi-faceted so trying to find transparency is nearly impossible for the investor and trying to put adequate laws in place is nearly impossible for regulators. Logic is thrown out the window when people hear of 'big' returns. No matter how many times the public is told to not put all your eggs in one basket and only invest in what you understand, there are still stories of people losing their life savings. While partial repeal of GLB to draw better lines between commercial and investment banking will help, there will be in a few years another financial crisis due to risk taking. My guess would be the insurance industry which may step in to provide products not covered by the current regulatory movement. IMHO, we don’t do a very good job of learning from history. We had a junk bond crisis and recently nobody seemed to recognize that bundled subprime mortgages are no different (except rating agencies gave them AAA ratings instead of BB – and shouldn’t ‘junk’ or ’subprime’ really be rated C, D, or F?). There was a blow-up in the mutual fund world – many commercial banks were able to convert their in-house collective funds (governed by bank regulation) to mutual funds (governed by SEC) and ultimately did not understand all the risks and regulations. Now we have ‘funds’ that are feeders into multi-billion hedge funds and private equity funds, but the investing public does not know that their supposedily safe investment is flowing into a high risk/reward situation. In the 1920s people borrowed on margin to invest never thinking market would go down; recently this has been housing. Today, even after Enron and WorldCom where employees lost all their life savings due to heavy company holdings, there is still ’silo’ investing – example: banks and companies that invested heavily in Lehman and/or Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac are being taken over or closed by regulators.
The current world market is multi-layered and multi-faceted so trying to find transparency is nearly impossible for the investor and trying to put adequate laws in place is nearly impossible for regulators.
Logic is thrown out the window when people hear of ‘big’ returns. No matter how many times the public is told to not put all your eggs in one basket and only invest in what you understand, there are still stories of people losing their life savings.
While partial repeal of GLB to draw better lines between commercial and investment banking will help, there will be in a few years another financial crisis due to risk taking. My guess would be the insurance industry which may step in to provide products not covered by the current regulatory movement.

]]> By: Helen http://thestrangedeathofliberalamerica.com/bill-clinton-glass-steagall-and-the-current-financial-and-mortgage-crisis-part-two-of-an-indepth-investigative-report.html/comment-page-1#comment-12616 Helen Tue, 26 Jan 2010 05:38:21 +0000 http://thestrangedeathofliberalamerica.com/?p=377#comment-12616 Why doesn't someone talk about 1913? That's when The Federal Reserve Act with it's phoney money system, the 16th amendment with it's violation of Article I, Sec 2, clause 3; Sec 9, clause 4 and 7; 4th amendment, and the 17th amend-ment that prohibits Congress from changing the places of elections of senators in Art. I, sec 4, clause 1 of the Constitution that took away state control over the senators and gave control to the FED over the senators happened. All 3 acts should be repealed and since the governors were given power to nominate temporary senators until the next meeting of the state legislature in Art I, sec 3, cl 2, all they had to do is change it to the next selection of the state legislature and no state would ever have to be without representation. The reason for the two houses is to give the people representation and also each state to have equal representation. Why doesn’t someone talk about 1913? That’s when The Federal Reserve Act with it’s phoney money system, the 16th amendment with it’s violation of Article I, Sec 2, clause 3; Sec 9, clause 4 and 7; 4th amendment, and the 17th amend-ment that prohibits Congress from changing the places of elections of senators in Art. I, sec 4, clause 1 of the Constitution that took away state control over the senators and gave control to the FED over the senators happened. All 3 acts should be repealed and since the governors were given power to nominate temporary senators until the next meeting of the state legislature in Art I, sec 3, cl 2, all they had to do is change it to the next selection of the state legislature and no state would ever have to be without representation. The reason for the two houses is to give the people representation and also each state to have equal representation.

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