Larry Summers and the Secret "End-Game" Memo (collapse of the world economy)

[Octafish]

67. Take the Credit Card companies' influence on the Bankruptcy Bill of 2002

Why Hillary Clinton Should Not Be The Democratic Presidential Nominee

Eric Zuesse
Huffington Post, 11/18/2013

EXCERPT...

This is how anti-abortion murderers and CEO crooks finally secured all their sought-for exemptions from "bankruptcy reform," which offered only Republican "tough love" for the middle class and poor - and an outright kick in the teeth to people bankrupted by medical bills, by job loss, or by divorce, the three biggest causes of bankruptcies, which studies showed accounted for almost all filings. (In fact, nearly half of all personal bankruptcies were due simply to medical expenses; and because of this new law, most of those cases would henceforth produce something akin to slavery capping the patient's misery.) Still, a large share of the total dollars involved in bankruptcy cases were assets held by the very few super-rich going bankrupt, and the Republican "bankruptcy reform" protected those bankrupts, so that MBNA and the other banks which had pushed so hard for this legislation received only limited real benefit from it. Perhaps the executives of those banks, who were protecting themselves from risks they were imposing upon others, were even more concerned to protect themselves in the event that they might need bankruptcy protection themselves, than they were to enhance the bottom lines of the companies they managed. This was a failure of their fiduciary obligations.

SNIP...

On 30 September 2002, BusinessWeek reported (p. 112), concerning the new U.S. bankruptcy law that seemed about to be passed in a Republican Congress and supported by the Republican President, "The legislation is especially harsh on lower-income debtors."

The lobbyists who actually shape - if not write - the laws, are hired by the relatively few people who have the financial wherewithal to employ lobbyists' services. Those lobbyists are real soldiers in this authentic class war. And most of the other real soldiers consist of the think tanks (like the Heritage Foundation, and the American Enterprise Institute), and the numerous political action committees, that the conservative rich hire to indoctrinate, and to pump money into, the election campaigns of their supportive politicians.

For example, was it pure coincidence that the biggest single contributor, at $240,675, to the G.W. Bush 2000 Presidential campaign, was MBNA Corp., the bank that lobbied the hardest for this bankruptcy "reform" bill? (Enron gave Bush less in that campaign, but was his top career giver, because Enron had financed Bush's Texas rise.) Was it coincidence that, in addition, MBNA's CEO, Charles Cawley, personally raised $369,156 from others for Bush? Another MBNA executive, Lance Weaver, was also a Bush "Ranger," having raised over $200,000 for Bush. After all, Bush's Democratic predecessor, President Clinton, had vetoed similar Republican legislation. But, ironically, the corruptors ended up being defeated this time around, by their own internecine war on this matter: when big-business bucks went up against Religious-Right bucks and votes, the whole deal crumbled. It turned out that violent anti-abortion protesters were seeking a special exemption in the new bankruptcy bill, to protect their assets from bankruptcy seizure by their victims (such as by abortion-doctors they shoot), but the banks (allied with Democrats on this point) opposed such an exemption. The Religious Right, and big business, customary allies, split here, and so the entire bill bombed.

However, this legislation was revived after Republicans increased their majority in the Senate in 2004, and the biggest barrier to passage in its reincarnation consisted of some of the corrupt executives themselves, who were determined to shield their personal assets from possible civil suits by stockholders and by others, including corporate creditors. Thus, on 2 March 2005, The New York Times headlined "Proposed Law On Bankruptcy Has Loophole: Wealthy Could Shield Many Assets in Trusts." The main sponsor of this revived bill was, of course, a Republican senator, who claimed ignorance of that provision. How odd, then, that his bill would protect banks against only poor deadbeats, while letting the richest ones off. So, whom had these banks been lobbying so hard to protect themselves from? - it was from the kinds of people they never met and didn't want to meet: the middle class and poor. Bankers seemed far less interested in protecting their institutions against people such as themselves. After all, they're God's People; and, as for debtors who might have to lose their homes in order simply to pay catastrophic medical bills, or whatever - God is evidently not so fond of those people anyway. Thus, on 8 March 2005, the U.S. Senate voted 53 to 46 to defeat a proposed Democratic amendment which would have removed the bill's shield for anti-abortion murderers. Republican Senator Orrin Hatch called this amendment a "poison pill" aimed solely to protect deadbeats by blocking passage of "bankruptcy reform." The next day, another Democratic amendment aimed to preserve a longstanding bankruptcy provision, which even the SEC acknowledged to be necessary in order to prohibit corruption by investment banks in certain bankruptcy cases. As the Washington Post headlined March 10th, "Senate Delays Action on Bankruptcy: Bipartisan Amendment Would Limit Advice By Investment Banks." It reported, "Earlier yesterday, five other proposed changes to the bill were voted down. ... [Among the] amendments that were defeated, largely along party lines, [was one] would have given elderly people more protection to keep their homes during bankruptcy."

Passage of this bill, and its signing into law by President Bush, represented Republican victory at the end of a lengthy campaign by large banks against their non-wealthy customers. The final version of this bill passed the U.S. Senate on 10 March 2005, vote #44, at 6:12 PM, and 74 Senators voted for it, and only 25 voted against it -- all 25 were Democrats (see this record of the roll-call vote: https://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/109-2005/s44).

Each and every Republican in the U.S. Senate voted for it. The only Senator who avoided voting was the Wall Street Democrat Hillary Clinton, who was the only one of the 100 U.S. Senators shown as "Not Voting" on this legislation - so that it could pass but without her vote being recorded on it. Even the senior Senator from her own state of NY, Chuck Schumer, who was well known to support Wall Street on almost everything, voted "Nay" on this monstrosity against the middle class. There were 54 Republicans in the U.S. Senate, and 54 of them voted "Yea" on this. There were 45 Democrats: 19 were "Yea," 25 "Nay," and 1 "Not Voting." There was one Independent Senator (former Republican James Jeffords of Vermont): 1 "Yea." So, on this bill, which had 100% Republican support, and which was opposed by 25 of the 45 Democrats, or by 56% of the Democrats, Hillary was a no-show.

CONTINUED...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/eric-zuesse/why-hillary-clinton-shoul_b_4293469.html