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Come up with a new Republican conspiracy theory, the deregulation strawman is getting a little old. The only regulation that was involved with the GSE crisis is the well abused CRA.
The White House was calling for GSE oversight reform in 2001 and every year there after. And what about S.190? The CBC forced honest bankers to give risky loans to uncreditworthy blacks who stayed up late at night watching infomercials about flipping real estate and getting rich fast.
Come up with a new Republican conspiracy theory, the deregulation strawman is getting a little old. The only regulation that was involved with the GSE crisis is the well abused CRA.
The White House was calling for GSE oversight reform in 2001 and every year there after. And what about S.190? The CBC forced honest bankers to give risky loans to uncreditworthy blacks who stayed up late at night watching infomercials about flipping real estate and getting rich fast.
Add to this the fact that Bill Clinton defended the so-called "deregulation" that they did, and said he did not see where any of it had anything to do with the current crisis.
The primary reason for this, is unarguably the CRA, the Jimmy Carter administration's piece of legislation that forced banks to make risky loans in poor neighborhoods, or risk losing their FDIC backing. This is what created the "sub-prime" market, and a direct result of the "lefts" belief that everyone had a Constitutional right to home ownership (I haven't yet found that in the Constitution, but I'm looking).
On top of this, of course is the mismanagement of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac by top Democrats like Barney Frank and Chris Dodd (and all the others with them), and the fact that they were feathering their own nests with Fannie Mae funds (Obama is included in this too; he also took funds).
These Democrats are crooked as a stick, and yet we left them in power (even gave them more power) to fix things? Shows us the ignorance of the voting public, does it not?
Add to this the fact that Bill Clinton defended the so-called "deregulation" that they did, and said he did not see where any of it had anything to do with the current crisis.
The primary reason for this, is unarguably the CRA, the Jimmy Carter administration's piece of legislation that forced banks to make risky loans in poor neighborhoods, or risk losing their FDIC backing. This is what created the "sub-prime" market, and a direct result of the "lefts" belief that everyone had a Constitutional right to home ownership (I haven't yet found that in the Constitution, but I'm looking).
On top of this, of course is the mismanagement of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac by top Democrats like Barney Frank and Chris Dodd (and all the others with them), and the fact that they were feathering their own nests with Fannie Mae funds (Obama is included in this too; he also took funds).
These Democrats are crooked as a stick, and yet we left them in power (even gave them more power) to fix things? Shows us the ignorance of the voting public, does it not?
Right. The saddest part about this whole unnecessary financial crisis is that 98% of Americans have no idea what we're talking about. They just keep accepting Olberman's and Maddow's fantasies about shady Republican fat cats making back room deals that destroy our financial institutions. When parent company GE gets the pay off for NBC and MSNBC throwing the election for the Democrats, America will have no clue once again. Fox may run a story about it, but don't look for the corrupt mainstream press to speak up. I told my employer to buy GE because they are certain to get a significant thank you from the Democrats.
Momonkey, perhaps if you actually read the post, you'll see the sources embedded in there...
By the way, I take a swipe at Republicans and Democrats alike - or perhaps you did not read the entry on Robert Rubin...
I'm forming a new party: The Responsibilitarians, since neither party seems ready to own up to the mess they've made, esp the Sean Hannity/Rush Limbaugh wing of the GOP..
"...Mr. Geithner’s involvement in several ultimately ill-fated efforts to buttress the American financial system is the very reason some Wall Street C.E.O.’s — a number of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of piquing the man who regulates them — question whether he’s up to the challenge....
...Mr. Geithner also oversaw and regulated an entire industry whose decline has delivered a further blow to an already weakened American economy. Under his watch, some of the biggest institutions that were the responsibility of the New York Fed — Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch and most recently, Citigroup — faltered." The New York Times
Barney Frank, Chris Dodd, and the rest of the congressional democrats who refused to take action regarding Fannie&Freddie - they were in the pocket of F&F - that's why they opposed all regulation put forth by the WH and republicans.
Due to the media's lack of investigative reporting and actually covering up for the dems, the public is totally clueless.
Momonkey, perhaps if you actually read the post, you'll see the sources embedded in there...
By the way, I take a swipe at Republicans and Democrats alike - or perhaps you did not read the entry on Robert Rubin...
I'm forming a new party: The Responsibilitarians, since neither party seems ready to own up to the mess they've made, esp the Sean Hannity/Rush Limbaugh wing of the GOP..
OK, and I Goggled the dates with the names and the news organizations but my Goggle must be broken because nothing is coming up to correspond to the quotes you have provided from the news organizations you've indicated. The rest of us put links in the story to provide our posts credibility. Since you have no such links and the original stories have disappeared for some reason. I have to assume they don't exist. All the best with your new political organization. Have a nice day.
OK, and I Goggled the dates with the names and the news organizations but my Goggle must be broken because nothing is coming up to correspond to the quotes you have provided from the news organizations you've indicated. The rest of us put links in the story to provide our posts credibility. Since you have no such links and the original stories have disappeared for some reason. I have to assume they don't exist. All the best with your new political organization. Have a nice day.
Goggled? No wonder you had an issue.
It takes about 45 seconds to find this one using Google, even whan stopping to flip channels on the TV:
Henry Paulson Secretary of the US Treasury and former CEO of Goldman Sachs
Before engineering the US government's financial sector bail-out, Paulson led the charge against regulation. Stephen Labaton writes in the New York Times (2 October 2008): "[In spring 2004] the five members of the Securities and Exchange Commission met in a basement hearing room to consider an urgent plea by the big investment banks.
"They wanted an exemption for their brokerage units from an old regulation that limited the amount of debt they could take on. The exemption would unshackle billions of dollars held in reserve as a cushion against losses on their investments. Those funds could then flow up to the parent company, enabling it to invest in the fast-growing but opaque world of mortgage-backed securities; credit derivatives, a form of insurance for bond holders; and other exotic instruments.
"The five investment banks led the charge, including Goldman Sachs, which was headed by Henry M. Paulson Jr. Two years later, he left to become Treasury secretary."
In spring 2006, shortly before Paulson moved to the Treasury, Goldman Sachs launched a new product, GSAMP Trust 2006-S. This was loaded with risky but opaque subprime mortgages – in the words of Allan Sloan of the Washington Post (16 October 2007): "financial toxic waste". When the value of GSAMP and similar products began to dive a year later, Goldman Sachs made more money by selling them short. In the meantime, Paulson had become Treasury secretary, cashing in his Goldman Sachs stock for $500 million, which his new government post allowed him to keep tax-free.
Phil Gramm Former Republican Senator and senior economic advisor to John McCain
Gramm helped craft the Gramm-Leach-Bliley act, a bank deregulation bill that swept away the Depression-era Glass-Steagall act which had been enacted to protect against another 1929-style crash.
"For more than two decades in Congress," wrote David Leonhardt in the New York Times (19 September 2008), Gramm "argued that the forces of the market had to be freed from government interference. Just a year after the passage of Gramm-Leach-Bliley, he was largely responsible for another bill – the Commodity Futures Modernization Act – that clearly did contribute to the current crisis. That law unleashed the derivatives market and paved the way for banks to become more aggressive about investing in mortgages. As recently as this summer, he was still saying that the biggest problem facing the American economy was excessive regulation."
Gramm was co-chair of John McCain's 2008 presidential campaign, and tipped to be his Treasury Secretary, but was sacked after complaining: "We have sort of become a nation of whiners. You just hear this constant whining, complaining about a loss of competitiveness, America in decline … You've heard of mental depression; this is a mental recession."
Robert Rubin Director of Citigroup and economic advisor to Barack Obama; former US Treasury Secretary
Rubin is the quintessential Wall Street Democrat, with a career path that took him from Harvard to Goldman Sachs (where he rose to Co-Chairman), to Bill Clinton's Treasury Secretary, to Director of Citigroup. Along with Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan and Rubin's deputy Larry Summers – dubbed the "Three Marketeers" by Time magazine in 1999 – he led the charge to financial deregulation in the late-90s. Recently he was criticised for failing to rein in Citigroup's exposure to risky loans. Both Rubin and Summers – who succeeded him as Treasury Secretary – have been tipped for the post in an Obama government.
Joe the CEO Just a regular hard-working exec with stock options
It's difficult to point the finger at any single "master of the universe", though we could start with Joe Cassano who led AIG's London-based Financial Products office, blamed for bringing down the company. And then throw in former AIG chiefs Martin Sullivan and Robert Willumstad, and Lehman Brothers' Richard Fuld. But they've all gone. Here's Dennis Berman (Wall Street Journal, 14 October 2008) on the true grit of those left behind:
You would have thought [Wall] Street's last surviving chieftains would be a contrite bunch by now, eager to reform their industry and help rebuild their country.
At least until you heard Goldman Sachs's Lloyd Blankfein, JP Morgan's James Dimon, Blackstone's Stephen Schwarzman, BlackRock's Larry Fink and Silver Lake's Glenn Hutchins assemble for a panel session at the New York Stock Exchange last week organized in part by The Wall Street Journal.
To the 75 Wall Street titans there nodding in agreement, the discussion must have seemed banal. But any outsider, from Washington or the dismissed realms of "flyover country," would have been amazed at the goings-on.
While America buckles in for years of sacrifice, the five chiefs took a different approach. The group pulled straight from the what-government-can-do-for-you school of 2006, lobbying for Wall Street tax breaks, the repeal of Sarbanes-Oxley and against the distraction of class-action lawsuits …
Consider Blackstone's Mr. Schwarzman, who took on a wounded look, saying that none of the people on the panel had done anything wrong. "I don't see corruption in this room. ... Every bad actor in this drama has washed away," he said. "There's no one left in place."
That jackass Gramm has always blamed any economic problems on America's middle and working classes. He's a clueless idealogue, and McCain was going to make him Treasury Sectretary.
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