WATCH Bill Clinton, Larry Summers, and Phil Gramm Have a LOVE FEST Over REPEAL of Glass Steagall

[Segami]

This is video footage of President Clinton signing the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act in Room 450 of the Old Executive Office Building. This footage is official public record produced by the White House Television (WHTV) crew, provided by the Clinton Presidential Library.

~snip~

This clip is a reminder of the ideology that got us into our current mess: rising inequality and debt levels, a global meltdown that led to the greatest looting of the public purse in history, followed by stagnation and deflation that is too widely blamed on the march of technology and not on poor policies and overt corruption. And this thinking is very much alive.

You’ll see Phil Gramm, at the outset, praise “free markets” even though that is an intellectually incoherent notion and depict the New Deal reforms as the result of Depression-bottom lack of faith. At around 12:00, Larry Summers tells the audience how great it is that the Federal government has been running a surplus. In fact, the Federal government acting as a fiscal drag meant some other sector had to dissave, as in borrow and spend, to make up for that to keep the economy from contracting. Since businesses had already gotten in the habit of being overly short-termist, it was consumers who were increasingly taking up the slack. And as we know now, high levels of consumer debt are a negative for growth. Yet that was the driver of the Clinton “prosperity”.

Summers also gives a pean to the fact that big bad government was no longer such a big presence in the financial markets (Treasury bonds outstanding were going down) meant that financial players were out there, doing a marvelous job of allocating. This was two years after Greenspan had already voiced doubts about the dot-com bubble with his “irrational exuberance” remark.

At 14:00, Bill Clinton takes the stage, and at around 16:00, he turns his pitch on how great the economy is. He cites productivity gains that were later called into question (I recall a Barrons article in 1999 or 2000 that identified that all of the productivity gains for the previous period (a quarter? a year?) were entirely due to increases in computer manufacturing, and that in turn was due to hedonic price adjustments. In other words, the Barrons article raised big red flags about the extent of the New Economy productivity miracle.

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2016/04/watch-bill-clinton-larry-summers-and-phil-gramm-have-a-love-fest-over-repeal-of-glass-steagall.html

One commentor at Daily Bail pointed out how Clinton later attempted to deny his enthusiasm for shredding Glass Steagall. From Bill Clinton on deregulation: ‘The Republicans made me do it!’ at the Columbia Journalism Review in 2013: The ex-president seriously mischaracterizes his record

Bill Clinton sat down with Fareed Zakaria last week ….Clinton’s comment about his record on regulation is an actual newsmaker, because it’s a giant whopper:

What happened? The American people gave the Congress to a group of very conservative Republicans. When they passed bills with the veto proof majority with a lot of Democrats voting for it, that I couldn’t stop, all of a sudden we turn out to be maniacal deregulators. I mean, come on. I know Senator Warren said the other day, admitted when she introduced a bill to reinstate the division between commercial and investment banks, she admitted that the repeal of Glass-Steagall did not cause one single solitary financial institution to fail.

This is, to be kind, bullshit….Clinton installed Robert Rubin and Larry Summers in the Treasury, which resulted in the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, which officially did in Glass-Steagall and the Commodity Futures Modernization Act, which left the derivatives market a laissez-faire Wild West (not to mention a disastrous strong dollar policy that was a critical and underrated factor in the bubble). He also reappointed Ayn Rand-acolyte Alan Greenspan, who has as much responsibility as anyone for creating the crisis, as Fed chairman—twice….his administration actively encouraged the big deregulatory legislation, and squashed its own dissenters, like Brooksley Born, who saw disaster ahead.

There’s even more detail in the CJR story, in case you’d ever need to cite it to Clintonistas.

cont'

http://www.cjr.org/the_audit/bill_clinton_the_republicans_m.php

[Segami]

1. "...Clintons have been loyal followers of..

"...the Robert Rubin school of thinking, that bankers should run the economy, not just ours but everywhere..."

[Baobab]

10. GATS caused this - the WTO General Agreement on Trade in Services

Don't let them weasel out of that admission!

GATS also screws up health care and has killed over a million Americans by privatizing public health care and preventing affordable health care. GATS also prevents public education and forces the privatization by piecemeal public schools and colleges. Also GATS globalizes service jobs trading good jobs for pie in the sky markets and lowering wages to inadequate global levels while preventing debt relief for families. Overall GATS is a disaster for Americans.


CONSUMER PROTECTION BILL!!! - My god, they are calling it the exact opposite of what it is.

Must see links on this BIGGEST RIPOFF OF ALL TIME:

https://www.citizen.org/documents/memo-gats-conflict-with-bank-size-limits-may-10-2011.pdf

http://www.citizen.org/documents/That%27sAllTheyGot.pdf

https://www.citizen.org/documents/FinanceReregulationFactSheetFINAL.pdf

http://www.democracynow.org/2014/6/20/a_plan_only_banksters_will_love

http://www.consumersinternational.org/media/1402116/tacd-finance-resolution-on-trade-rules-and-financial-regulation-green.pdf

https://www.citizen.org/documents/Memo%20-%20Unanswered%20questions%20memo%20for%20Geneva.pdf

[silvershadow]

2. One of several sledgehammers to our country. Someone's agenda. Not mine. nt

[elleng]

3. Thanks, saving for another time

when I want to be reminded (more than I do now.) However, MANY should be reminded NOW.

Thanks again.

[KittyWampus]

9. Here, you can save this pix of Sanders and his allies voting against the Auto Bailout

?1457481859

[AzDar]

4. K & R

[snowy owl]

5. Ah Segami. I so respect your posts . . . but nobody cares anymore. Huffpo:ocean suffocating in 15 yr

and still nobody cares. Let's just all sit around the campfire singing odes to Hillary. That's where we are at.

[senz]

6. Scoundrels wrecking our economy.

Funny, Summers says the bill "takes a major step forward into the 21st century."

Yowsa, 2008 to be specific.

[Segami]

8. Yea,..which century is he living in?....

[senz]

11. The point I was making is that what they did in 1996 led to the crash of 2008.

Deregulating the banks, remember? Glass-Steagall.

That, I believe, is the significance of the video.

[Sky Masterson]

7. And they want rewarded with another shot in office

Bush 2 lies us into a war, Gets reelected.
Hillary Clinton supports his call to war, gets almost given the Nomination.
I'm tired of rewarding people for bad things.

[Ferd Berfel]

12. Bill CLinton was the best Republican President since Eisenhower

Hillary supported all of that and more, she is no different

THe republican party has gone insane and the neo-dems have become the old republican party

[Skwmom]

14. The Clintons have left devastation in their wake. The hole will be so big if they get back in we

will NEVER recover. History will not look to kindly on us...

[uponit7771]

13. GS didn't apply to investment first but Sanders CFMA vote did, next?