Massive leak exposes how the wealthy and powerful hide their money

[KoKo]

154. Ted Cruz just named Phil Gramm his economic advisor. Here's Gramm's economic legacy:

(I'm not an Atheist, nor an Evangelical Christian..just a fallen away Episcopalian) so...... I just have to say about Phil & Wendy Gramm.. "Good Lord Deliver Us!"

For those Interested ....it is an interesting read.

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Ted Cruz just named Phil Gramm his economic advisor. Here's Gramm's economic legacy.

f it's true that a man can be judged by the company he keeps, what are we to make of the appointment of former Sen. Phil Gramm as economic advisor to the presidential campaign of Ted Cruz?

The short answer is that they're cut very much from the same economic cloth, which makes sense if one is advising the other. Here's a longer answer.

Cruz made the appointment Friday, when he collected Gramm's endorsement of his quest for the presidency. He cited Gramm's role as an opponent of the healthcare reform measures proposed in the 1990s by President Bill Clinton, as well as Gramm's record as a professor of economics at Texas A&M University before becoming a U.S. representative in 1979 and moving up to the Senate in 1985. He retired from Congress in 2002.

This is a mental recession....We've become a nation of whiners.

Ex-Sen. Phil Gramm (R-Texas) in 2008, just before the crash of Lehman Bros.

The distinguishing feature of Gramm's career in public service is hostility to regulation in almost every form. "Gramm, with his Southerner's mistrust of big government, believes that markets, left to their own devices, eventually will find the most efficient way of bringing together buyers and sellers," wrote former Securities and Exchange Chairman Arthur Levitt in his memoir, "Take on the Street." "'Unless the waters are crimson with the blood of investors,' he exclaimed in one meeting, with a finger in my chest, 'I don't want you embarking on any regulatory flights of fancy.'"

Gramm left a long record as a dedicated financial deregulator on Capitol Hill, with much of his effort aimed at freeing up trading in derivatives. That's why he's often identified as one of the godfathers of the 2008 financial crisis, which was spurred in part by banks' imprudent trading and investing in these extremely complex financial instruments.

Gramm's previous stint as a presidential campaign advisor ended inauspiciously. That was in 2008, when he served as co-chairman of John McCain's presidential run.

http://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-fi-hiltzik-cruz-gramm-20160321-snap-htmlstory.html