president #42 is to blame

[CSMJ]

The fallout of Lehman brothers and Bear Stearns and all of the mortgage crisis goes back to clinton's repeal of the Glass Speagle Act of 1933. This lbasicly let banks merge with risky unsecured brokers and buy "junk" bonds. This helped the economy in the short run but like ALL LIBERAL policies hurts it in the long run!! He repealed it in 1999 nov 12th or 13th I believe.

Even Clinton's former Treasure Sec Robert Reich said this last night on msnbc. after he left the position he said Clinton signed this repeal at the request of lobbiest!!

Just like when Clinton signed NAFTA and he put a provision in it that the Mexican truck drivers cannot cross the border until 2001. When he was to leave office, YES Clinton was and is the slickest politician we will ever see in our lifetime I'll give him credit for that.

And he had on his desk for 8 count em 8 yrs the Carpal Tunnel bill and he signed it 1 day before he left office because he knew bush would veto it and then the Libs could cry that bush doesnt want this bill when in fact clinton did not either or he would of signed it 8 yrs earlier.

Keep believing the Left Wing Media if you want!!

[Captain723]

The fallout of Lehman brothers and Bear Stearns and all of the mortgage crisis goes back to clinton's repeal of the Glass Speagle Act of 1933. This lbasicly let banks merge with risky unsecured brokers and buy "junk" bonds. This helped the economy in the short run but like ALL LIBERAL policies hurts it in the long run!! He repealed it in 1999 nov 12th or 13th I believe.

Even Clinton's former Treasure Sec Robert Reich said this last night on msnbc. after he left the position he said Clinton signed this repeal at the request of lobbiest!!

Just like when Clinton signed NAFTA and he put a provision in it that the Mexican truck drivers cannot cross the border until 2001. When he was to leave office, YES Clinton was and is the slickest politician we will ever see in our lifetime I'll give him credit for that.

And he had on his desk for 8 count em 8 yrs the Carpal Tunnel bill and he signed it 1 day before he left office because he knew bush would veto it and then the Libs could cry that bush doesnt want this bill when in fact clinton did not either or he would of signed it 8 yrs earlier.

Keep believing the Left Wing Media if you want!!

There are problems with NAFTA...you, I, Barack and every other american who has lost or knows someone who has lost their jobs to another country... get it, but McLAIM does not get it. There needs to be changes to the document that allows FAIR TRADE...NOT FREE TRADE TO SCREW THE AMERICANS!! I don't know if everyone realizes that if McLaim is voted into office, he plans to give the wealthiest companies in America Tax breaks for moving businesses out of the US and to recoupe the money he is going to tax our Health Care.....by...by...VEBA!!! People better open their eyes. Retirees for sure should open their eyes....they are on a fixed income.....this money will come out of your pocket....so if you or your wife has to have major surgery...guess what...all the money you saved, your house and anything else you own, you will have to sell in order to pay for your health care. You will all realize it after 4 yrs......probably not....you haven't realized it yet with the compete idiot we have in office right now!!

[StrangeHighways]

Because the names of people involved in this scandal are names like Dodd, Chris Dodd, Connecticut, Franklin Raines, currently on the Obama economic team, had to leave Fannie Mae in embarrassment over fraud charges. Jim Johnson, currently on the Obama campaign as an economic advisor with Frank Raines, he, too, used to work at Fannie Mae.

And you think Barry will save us huh?

[BillSing]

The fallout of Lehman brothers and Bear Stearns and all of the mortgage crisis goes back to clinton's repeal of the Glass Speagle Act of 1933. This lbasicly let banks merge with risky unsecured brokers and buy "junk" bonds. This helped the economy in the short run but like ALL LIBERAL policies hurts it in the long run!! He repealed it in 1999 nov 12th or 13th I believe.

It was repealed in 1999. So now 9 years later it is still his fault ? That sounds like spin if i ever heard it .

If it was so bad to have repealed it why wasnt it re-enacted ?

[daytrader millionaire]

The fallout of Lehman brothers and Bear Stearns and all of the mortgage crisis goes back to clinton's repeal of the Glass Speagle Act of 1933. This lbasicly let banks merge with risky unsecured brokers and buy "junk" bonds. This helped the economy in the short run but like ALL LIBERAL policies hurts it in the long run!! He repealed it in 1999 nov 12th or 13th I believe.

Even Clinton's former Treasure Sec Robert Reich said this last night on msnbc. after he left the position he said Clinton signed this repeal at the request of lobbiest!!

Just like when Clinton signed NAFTA and he put a provision in it that the Mexican truck drivers cannot cross the border until 2001. When he was to leave office, YES Clinton was and is the slickest politician we will ever see in our lifetime I'll give him credit for that.

And he had on his desk for 8 count em 8 yrs the Carpal Tunnel bill and he signed it 1 day before he left office because he knew bush would veto it and then the Libs could cry that bush doesnt want this bill when in fact clinton did not either or he would of signed it 8 yrs earlier.

Keep believing the Left Wing Media if you want!!

WRONG AGAIN!!!!!!!!!!!! YOU ASS-CLOWN

 

 

Years before Phil Gramm was a McCain campaign adviser and a lobbyist for a Swiss bank at the center of the housing credit crisis, he pulled a sly maneuver in the Senate that helped create today's subprime meltdown.

 

Who's to blame for the biggest financial catastrophe of our time? There are plenty of culprits, but one candidate for lead perp is former Sen. Phil Gramm. Eight years ago, as part of a decades-long anti-regulatory crusade, Gramm pulled a sly legislative maneuver that greased the way to the multibillion-dollar subprime meltdown. Yet has Gramm been banished from the corridors of power? Reviled as the villain who bankrupted Middle America? Hardly. Now a well-paid executive at a Swiss bank, Gramm cochairs Sen. John McCain's presidential campaign and advises the Republican candidate on economic matters. He's been mentioned as a possible Treasury secretary should McCain win. That's right: A guy who helped screw up the global financial system could end up in charge of US economic policy. Talk about a market failure.

 

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.

 

But Gramm's most cunning coup on behalf of his friends in the financial services industry - friends who gave him millions over his 24-year congressional career - came on December 15, 2000. It was an especially tense time in Washington. Only two days earlier, the Supreme Court had issued its decision on Bush v. Gore. President Bill Clinton and the Republican-controlled Congress were locked in a budget showdown. It was the perfect moment for a wily senator to game the system. As Congress and the White House were hurriedly hammering out a $384-billion omnibus spending bill, Gramm slipped in a 262-page measure called the Commodity Futures Modernization Act. Written with the help of financial industry lobbyists and cosponsored by Senator Richard Lugar (R-Ind.), the chairman of the agriculture committee, the measure had been considered dead - even by Gramm. Few lawmakers had either the opportunity or inclination to read the version of the bill Gramm inserted. "Nobody in either chamber had any knowledge of what was going on or what was in it," says a congressional aide familiar with the bill's history.

 

It's not exactly like Gramm hid his handiwork - far from it. The balding and bespectacled Texan strode onto the Senate floor to hail the act's inclusion into the must-pass budget package. But only an expert, or a lobbyist, could have followed what Gramm was saying. The act, he declared, would ensure that neither the sec nor the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (cftc) got into the business of regulating newfangled financial products called swaps - and would thus "protect financial institutions from overregulation" and "position our financial services industries to be world leaders into the new century."

 

It didn't quite work out that way. For starters, the legislation contained a provision - lobbied for by Enron, a generous contributor to Gramm - that exempted energy trading from regulatory oversight, allowing Enron to run rampant, wreck the California electricity market, and cost consumers billions before it collapsed. (For Gramm, Enron was a family affair. Eight years earlier, his wife, Wendy Gramm, as cftc chairwoman, had pushed through a rule excluding Enron's energy futures contracts from government oversight. Wendy later joined the Houston-based company's board, and in the following years her Enron salary and stock income brought between $915,000 and $1.8 million into the Gramm household.)

 

But the Enron loophole was small potatoes compared to the devastation that unregulated swaps would unleash. Credit default swaps are essentially insurance policies covering the losses on securities in the event of a default. Financial institutions buy them to protect themselves if an investment they hold goes south. It's like bookies trading bets, with banks and hedge funds gambling on whether an investment (say, a pile of subprime mortgages bundled into a security) will succeed or fail. Because of the swap-related provisions of Gramm's bill - which were supported by Fed chairman Alan Greenspan and Treasury secretary Larry Summers - a $62 trillion market (nearly four times the size of the entire US stock market) remained utterly unregulated, meaning no one made sure the banks and hedge funds had the assets to cover the losses they guaranteed.

 

In essence, Wall Street's biggest players (which, thanks to Gramm's earlier banking deregulation efforts, now incorporated everything from your checking account to your pension fund) ran a secret casino. "Tens of trillions of dollars of transactions were done in the dark," says University of San Diego law professor Frank Partnoy, an expert on financial markets and derivatives. "No one had a picture of where the risks were flowing." Betting on the risk of any given transaction became more important - and more lucrative - than the transactions themselves, Partnoy notes: "So there was more betting on the riskiest subprime mortgages than there were actual mortgages." Banks and hedge funds, notes Michael Greenberger, who directed the cftc's division of trading and markets in the late 1990s, "were betting the subprimes would pay off and they would not need the capital to support their bets."

 

These unregulated swaps have been at "the heart of the subprime meltdown," says Greenberger. "I happen to think Gramm did not know what he was doing. I don't think a member in Congress had read the 262-page bill or had thought of the cataclysm it would cause." In 1998, Greenberger's division at the cftc proposed applying regulations to the burgeoning derivatives market. But, he says, "all hell broke loose. The lobbyists for major commercial banks and investment banks and hedge funds went wild. They all wanted to be trading without the government looking over their shoulder."

 

Now, belatedly, the feds are swooping in - but not to regulate the industry, only to bail it out, as they did in engineering the March takeover of investment banking giant Bear Stearns by JPMorgan Chase, fearing the firm's collapse could trigger a dominoes-like crash of the entire credit derivatives market.

 

No one in Washington apologizes for anything, so it's no surprise that Gramm has failed to issue any mea culpa. Post-Enron, says Greenberger, the senator even called him to say, "You're going around saying this was my fault - and it's not my fault. I didn't intend this."

 

Whether or not Gramm had bothered to ponder the potential downsides of his commodities legislation, having helped set off an industry free-for-all, he reaped the rewards. In 2003, he left the Senate to take a highly lucrative job at ubs, Switzerland's largest bank, which had been able to acquire investment house PaineWebber due to his banking deregulation bill. He would soon be lobbying Congress, the Fed, and the Treasury Department for ubs on banking and mortgage matters. There was a moment of poetic justice when ubs became one of the subprime crisis' top losers, writing down $37 billion as of this spring - an amount equal to its previous four years of profits combined. In a report explaining how it had managed to mess up so grandly, ubs noted that two-thirds of its losses were the fault of collateralized debt obligations - securities backed largely by subprime instruments - and that credit default swaps had been "key to the growth" of its out-of-control cdo business. (Gramm declined to comment for this article.)

 

Gramm's record as a reckless deregulator has not affected his rating as a Republican economic expert. Sen. John McCain has relied on him for policy advice, especially, according to the campaign, on housing matters. The two have been buddies ever since they served together in the House in the 1980s; in 1996, McCain chaired Gramm's flop of a presidential campaign. (Gramm spent $21 million and earned only 10 delegates during the gop primaries.) In 2005, McCain told a Wall Street Journal columnist that Gramm was his economic guru. Two years later, Gramm wrote a piece for the Journal extolling McCain as a modern-day Abraham Lincoln, and he's hailed McCain's love of tax cuts and free trade. Media accounts have identified Gramm as a contender for the top slot at the Treasury Department if McCain reaches the White House. "If McCain gets in," frets Lynn Turner, a former chief sec accountant, "we'll have more of the same deregulatory mess. I like John McCain, but given what I know about Phil Gramm, I wouldn't vote for McCain."

 

As a thriving bank exec and presidential adviser, Gramm has defied a prime economic principle: Bad products are driven out of the market. In John McCain, he has gained an important customer, so his stock has gone up in value. And there's no telling when the Gramm bubble will burst.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Thanks Sott By Deej

this stuff you serve up is much better than watching the history channel (as if you could get much truth served up watching it)

 

 

 

Added: Wed, 11 Jun 2008 01:08 EDT

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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[daytrader millionaire]

At least you know why clinton had to support it

That is why the president needs to be able to have a line item vetol!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[daytrader millionaire]

Because the names of people involved in this scandal are names like Dodd, Chris Dodd, Connecticut, Franklin Raines, currently on the Obama economic team, had to leave Fannie Mae in embarrassment over fraud charges. Jim Johnson, currently on the Obama campaign as an economic advisor with Frank Raines, he, too, used to work at Fannie Mae.

And you think Barry will save us huh?

Why don't you do us a favor and use your etap money and take a economics class at your local college.so you quit embarrassing yourself about your knowledge about economics!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[badfinger]

Because the names of people involved in this scandal are names like Dodd, Chris Dodd, Connecticut, Franklin Raines, currently on the Obama economic team, had to leave Fannie Mae in embarrassment over fraud charges. Jim Johnson, currently on the Obama campaign as an economic advisor with Frank Raines, he, too, used to work at Fannie Mae.

And you think Barry will save us huh?

 

Google "Keating Five" and see what you can find out about McCain.

[StrangeHighways]

Why don't you do us a favor and use your etap money and take a economics class at your local college.so you quit embarrassing yourself about your knowledge about economics!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Why dont you do yourself a favor and stop swinging from Obama's nutsack and read for yourself what he says.But you like so many would rather be spoonfed by the media.

[condor]

Why dont you do yourself a favor and stop swinging from Obama's nutsack and read for yourself what he says.But you like so many would rather be spoonfed by the media.

 

Obama's nutsack. Thats fucking awsome.

[No_Fear]

Yes, and isn't it interesting that Fannie and Freddie contributed $85,000 to the Obama campaign. :shades:

[4rd4life]

Yes, and isn't it interesting that Fannie and Freddie contributed $85,000 to the Obama campaign. :shades:

 

What about McCain's $99,300 from Bear Stern, or the $117,500 from Lehman Brothers, or the $177,475 from Merrill Lynch need the list go

on.

[stephenhawkings]

matt millen for president!

all our problems will go away...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

then they will be dwarfed by much larger problems!

[Pioneer]

[on layoff]

I think we are screwed either way. Roll tide OBAMA, or McCrackhead

[GPC]

Google "Keating Five" and see what you can find out about McCain.

 

 

Google - Chris Dodd Wikipedia

 

 

Google -Franklin Raines Wikipedia

 

Google-Jim Johnson Wikipedia

 

Check out this web site...www.slate.com--Fannie Maeand the vast Bipartisan Conspiracy

[1993Stang]

Because the names of people involved in this scandal are names like Dodd, Chris Dodd, Connecticut, Franklin Raines, currently on the Obama economic team, had to leave Fannie Mae in embarrassment over fraud charges. Jim Johnson, currently on the Obama campaign as an economic advisor with Frank Raines, he, too, used to work at Fannie Mae.

And you think Barry will save us huh?

 

Funny, McCain's economic advisor got a 40 million dollar parachute when he was a head honcho at his last firm...and this is who we want for prez.

[fmccap]

The fallout of Lehman brothers and Bear Stearns and all of the mortgage crisis goes back to clinton's repeal of the Glass Speagle Act of 1933. This lbasicly let banks merge with risky unsecured brokers and buy "junk" bonds. This helped the economy in the short run but like ALL LIBERAL policies hurts it in the long run!! He repealed it in 1999 nov 12th or 13th I believe.

Even Clinton's former Treasure Sec Robert Reich said this last night on msnbc. after he left the position he said Clinton signed this repeal at the request of lobbiest!!

Just like when Clinton signed NAFTA and he put a provision in it that the Mexican truck drivers cannot cross the border until 2001. When he was to leave office, YES Clinton was and is the slickest politician we will ever see in our lifetime I'll give him credit for that.

And he had on his desk for 8 count em 8 yrs the Carpal Tunnel bill and he signed it 1 day before he left office because he knew bush would veto it and then the Libs could cry that bush doesnt want this bill when in fact clinton did not either or he would of signed it 8 yrs earlier.

Keep believing the Left Wing Media if you want!!

I think you guys need to quit believing all of them.

 

Stubborn Ignorance

Here's what the U.S. Constitution says: "All bills for raising Revenue shall originate in the House of Representatives; but the Senate may propose or concur with Amendments as on other Bills." How many times have we heard politicians, pundits and guardians of our news media say that President Bush cut taxes, or Obama is going to raise taxes? The fact of the matter is that presidents have no power to raise or lower taxes. They can propose tax measures or veto them but it is Congress that has the ultimate power to raise or lower taxes since they can, with a two-thirds vote, override a presidential veto. The same principle applies to spending. Presidents cannot be held responsible for budget deficits or surpluses. A president cannot spend a dime that Congress does not first appropriate. Given these plain facts, are politicians, pundits and media people -- who persist in talking about a president cutting or raising taxes, or creating a budget deficit -- ignorant, stupid or deceptive?

 

English philosopher Herbert Spencer said, "The ultimate result of shielding men from the effects of folly is to fill the world with fools."

[Fatso]

Progressive Insurance Commercial; "YEEEEEAH" "or MAYBE a BIG 'tricked-out' taxpayer funded,corporate welfare,bailout program"Republicans are all about WELFARE{corporate} and HIGHER taxes too!The rules are for ONLY the middle-class

Edited September 17, 2008 by Fatso

[4rd4life]

Google - Chris Dodd Wikipedia

 

 

Google -Franklin Raines Wikipedia

 

Google-Jim Johnson Wikipedia

 

Check out this web site...www.slate.com--Fannie Maeand the vast Bipartisan Conspiracy

 

I hope you don't believe everything or anything for that matter on Wikipedia, you do know that it can be edited by anybody.

[GPC]

What about McCain's $99,300 from Bear Stern, or the $117,500 from Lehman Brothers, or the $177,475 from Merrill Lynch need the list go

on.

 

 

So I take it your info. is TRUE! Where did you get it.? Or can it be edited also?

 

Was you there when handed this to McCain?

[4rd4life]

So I take it your info. is TRUE! Where did you get it.? Or can it be edited also?

 

Was you there when handed this to McCain?

 

You don't read news papers or watch the news and actually both Obama and McCain have taken a total of close to $17 million in contribution's from Wall Street alone, and no I don't edit my Info no need to and I'm not trying to get into a pissing match, I use to look things up on Wikipedia also until my kids pointed this out to me check out the bottom of the 2nd paragraph.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_McCain_p..._campaign,_2008

Edited September 17, 2008 by 4rd4life

[GPC]

You don't read news papers or watch the news and actually both Obama and McCain have taken a total of close to $17 million in contribution's from Wall Street alone, and no I don't edit my Info no need to and I'm not trying to get into a pissing match, I use to look things up on Wikipedia also until my kids pointed this out to me check out the bottom of the 2nd paragraph.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_McCain_p..._campaign,_2008

 

 

 

Newspapers are Edited

 

News Local or National on TV has Editedor's

 

I was just watching the News, They said Obama (the BIG O ) got more contrributions from Freddie MAC & Fannie MAE than McCain did. 5 times as much.

 

I put those post on there to let people read for themselves,I never said anything about them being TRUE!!!!

 

Why would you say anything about wikipedia,then post something about it?

[Fatso]

Newspapers are Edited

 

News Local or National on TV has Editedor's

 

I was just watching the News, They said Obama (the BIG O ) got more contrributions from Freddie MAC & Fannie MAE than McCain did. 5 times as much.

 

I put those post on there to let people read for themselves,I never said anything about them being TRUE!!!!

 

Why would you say anything about wikipedia,then post something about it?

THAT IS WHAT I AM TRYING TO TELL EVERYBODY.DEMOCRATS AND REPUBLICANS ARE BOTH CORRUPT.THEY ALL BRIBE.THEY ALL TAKE BRIBES.THEY ARE STEALING FROM THE TAXPAYERS AND IT IS ALL DEFECIT SPENDING.WHAT CAN WE DO?WE HAVE TO PAY OUR TAXES OUR WE WILL GET PUT IN PRISON.THAT IS WHY I VOTED TO RECALL ANDY DILLON.AT SOME POINT WE HAVE TO DO MORE THAN JUST TALK AND BLOG.THE PRESIDENT,CONGRESS AND SENATE ARE NOTHING MORE THAN A WHOREHOUSE.LETS HATE EACH OTHER LIKE THET WANT.LOOK A FAT PERSON!LOOK A BLACK PERSON!LOOK A WHITE PERSON.LOOK A TRAITOR WHO IS AGAINST THE WAR IN IRAQ.LOOK AN HISPANIC!LOOK SOMEONE WHO IS IN A UNION.I DOUBT IF THE GOLD RESERVES ARE STILL IN FORT KNOX.

Edited September 18, 2008 by Fatso

[4rd4life]

Newspapers are Edited

 

News Local or National on TV has Editedor's

 

I was just watching the News, They said Obama (the BIG O ) got more contrributions from Freddie MAC & Fannie MAE than McCain did. 5 times as much.

 

I put those post on there to let people read for themselves,I never said anything about them being TRUE!!!!

 

Why would you say anything about wikipedia,then post something about it?

 

I had edited the page that I had posted, and had you as one of his advisor's but the page must have been reedited before you read it, try it out just click on the edit tab then you can put what ever you want like I said in my other post I'm not trying to have a pissing match. I am not the local or national news I have no control over what they do, and as far as their contributors allot of these give to both parties and you know what they say he who has the most wins, but they knew the shape they were in and they should have never had contributed, but you or I have no control over that.