Hillary Clinton opposes breaking up the megabanks, opposes reinstating Glass-Steagall

[BlueEye]

235. I just watched the Hillary's New School economic speech.

Most of it was the pro-middle class rhetoric we've heard from Obama, with an "empowering women" angle on some of it. Any of us here can support such policies (it's pretty non-controversial among Democrats), although actually getting Congress to implement them is a whole 'nother ballgame.

The last fifteen minutes was where she really delved into Wall Street, and where the huge divergence from Bernie's positions was evident. She articulated a surprisingly nuanced vision for corporate/capital tax policy and financial regulation. For me personally, I could actually getting a feel for what those policies are, beyond vague MSM-friendly soundbites.

On the tax front, she never said she wants to raise rates on corporate America. Instead, she wants to reform the code so that companies will actually repatriate their earnings and pay taxes on them. She wants to restructure capital gains rates to encourage *real* long-term investing, rather than the pump and dump strategies that qualify today. Implicitly, she's saying she intends to retain some form of favorable capital gains rate. Also, she alluded to some sort of tax policy mechanism that would discourage hedge funds from raiding corporate retained earnings and promote long term capital expenditure. In plain English, she's saying corporations should spend their money, rather than let ultra-wealthy investors steal it. Implicit in that is that she doesn't intend to tax all the accumulated corporate earnings and redistribute it, as Bernie might advocate.

She did indeed say "Too big too fail is too big a problem!" Hillary and her advisers clearly believe that the problem of massive banks and Systematically Important Financial Institutions (SIFIs) can be managed WITHOUT breaking them up. That much is clear. She probably intends to redouble efforts to enforce and defend Dodd-Frank, and to empower the Treasury, FSOC, Fed, FDIC SEC, PCAOB, ETC. to do what they were tasked to do: manage risk. Manage risk. Say it over and over again, because managing risk is clearly how a President Hillary Clinton would approach bank regulation.

Beyond that, she spoke of prosecuting fraud more effectively... I'll believe that when I see it. Her idea of creating a special fund to spend financial penalties and fines on infrastructure was novel.

In short, I don't see Hillary as two-faced. If you read between the lines, you'll see what we have all known: Hillary Clinton is a moderate Democrat, with centrist views on financial regulation. Bernie would go after Wall Street with a meat cleaver. Hillary would use a scalpel. Her positions haven't changed all that much, to be honest. In my opinion, she's been quite consistent on this stuff throughout her career.