The Ones Who Got It Right

[slipslidingaway]

edited to include names

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/04/04-0

"Why is it that well regarded people working the fields of corporate power and performance who repeatedly predicted the Wall Street bubble and its bursting receive so little media and attention?

Instead, the public is still being exposed to the comments and writings of people like Alan Greenspan, Robert Rubin, James Glassman (of Dow 36,000 notoriety) while others like Timothy Geithner, Larry Summers, and Gary Gensler are newly-appointed at high levels in the Obama Administration. These men were variously architects, rationalizers and implementers of the massive de-regulation and non-regulation that unleashed the epic forces of greed, speculation and ruination of millions of livelihoods and trillions of dollars other peoples’ money worldwide.

Here are some of the people who got it right—early and often:

William Greider
Robert Kuttner
Jim Hightower
Nomi Prins
John R. MacArthur
Robert A.G. Monks
Tom Stanton
Kevin Phillips
Naomi Klein


Chances are that outside the independent media and an occasional public tv-radio interview, you have not seen or read them in the mass media. But they were right, so why haven’t you? Well, first of all, they took on commercial interests and called them out by name and specific misdeeds...

Finally, there are establishment figures who tried, in their own way, to blow the whistle—James Grant, Henry Kaufman and, twenty five years ago, Felix Rohatyn come to mind. Their astute alarms regarding excessive risk-taking were ignored. They are not getting much media play either..."

[slipslidingaway]

1. edited to include the names in the OP n/t

[FreakinDJ]

2. Just search the archives here at DU

you'll find all of them

[slipslidingaway]

3. Too bad they mostly go unnoticed....

instead we hear claims 'if only we had known'

:(

[malaise]

4. add Roubini

Wellstone, Dorgan, Feingold and others

[slipslidingaway]

5. Yes there were others as well, thanks n/t

[Telly Savalas]

27. Isn't Roubini on TV quite a bit?

[rrneck]

6. No money in it nt

[slipslidingaway]

10. True :( n/t

[amborin]

7. k & r

[slipslidingaway]

11. TY n/t

[sabrina 1]

8. Don't forget the

pathetically small number of Dems (7) and the one Republican who voted, in the Senate in 1999 against Gramm's deregulation bill.

http://www.nytimes.com/1999/11/05/business/congress-passes-wide-ranging-bill-easing-bank-laws.html

Congress approved landmark legislation today that opens the door for a new era on Wall Street in which commercial banks, securities houses and insurers will find it easier and cheaper to enter one another's businesses.

The measure, considered by many the most important banking legislation in 66 years, was approved in the Senate by a vote of 90 to 8 and in the House tonight by 362 to 57. The bill will now be sent to the president, who is expected to sign it, aides said.

And Larry Summers was one of the most enthusiastic of those who got it WRONG:

'Today Congress voted to update the rules that have governed financial services since the Great Depression and replace them with a system for the 21st century,'' Treasury Secretary Lawrence H. Summers said. ''This historic legislation will better enable American companies to compete in the new economy.'

And those who got it RIGHT:

The decision to repeal the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933 provoked dire warnings from a handful of dissenters that the deregulation of Wall Street would someday wreak havoc on the nation's financial system.

.......

''I think we will look back in 10 years' time and say we should not have done this but we did because we forgot the lessons of the past, and that that which is true in the 1930's is true in 2010,'' said Senator Byron L. Dorgan, Democrat of North Dakota. ''I wasn't around during the 1930's or the debate over Glass-Steagall. But I was here in the early 1980's when it was decided to allow the expansion of savings and loans. We have now decided in the name of modernization to forget the lessons of the past, of safety and of soundness.''

Senator Paul Wellstone, Democrat of Minnesota, said that Congress had ''seemed determined to unlearn the lessons from our past mistakes...... Scores of banks failed in the Great Depression as a result of unsound banking practices, and their failure only deepened the crisis,'' Mr. Wellstone said. ''Glass-Steagall was intended to protect our financial system by insulating commercial banking from other forms of risk. It was one of several stabilizers designed to keep a similar tragedy from recurring. Now Congress is about to repeal that economic stabilizer without putting any comparable safeguard in its place.''

And here are the others who voted against it, issuing similar warnings to those by Sen. Dorgan and Sen. Wellstone:

One Republican Senator, Richard C. Shelby of Alabama, voted against the legislation. He was joined by seven Democrats: Barbara Boxer of California, Richard H. Bryan of Nevada, Russell D. Feingold of Wisconsin, Tom Harkin of Iowa, Barbara A. Mikulski of Maryland, Mr. Dorgan and Mr. Wellstone.

In the House, 155 Democrats and 207 Republicans voted for the measure, while 51 Democrats, 5 Republicans and 1 independent opposed it. Fifteen members did not vote.

So sad not to still have Wellstone's voice in the Senate ~ but there were far too few of them back then, to stop the wreckage from beginning, and Clinton signed the bill, so it's hard to blame just the Republicans, (which I used to do pretty blindly, until my Repub friends told me to go 'check the record', and I did.

[slipslidingaway]

13. Very true and Senator Dorgan wants an investigation - S Res 62

http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=sr111-62

Thanks

[glitch]

9. David Korten, James Galbraith, Joseph Stiglitz, there are more K & R nt

[slipslidingaway]

14. There are more, thank you n/t

[chimpymustgo]

12. And why won't we listen to them now? No, many here VILLIFY them for speaking the truth now.

[slipslidingaway]

15. Yes, pretty sad to watch, but wait for the outcry when entitlement

reform begins in earnest...hope it's better than I think it will be.

:shrug:

[girl gone mad]

16. Yes, then they will ask: "why is this happening?"

and it probably will be too late.

[slipslidingaway]

17. It will be too late, significant $$$ have already been moved....

you cannot pay for anything if you spent the money somewhere else.

We were told back in January that entitlement reform was going to play a large part in reigning the deficit.

[FreakinDJ]

19. Health care Reform is what Obama is talking about

he has made that statement repeatedly for weeks now.

"Without changing significantly the cost of Health Care ...."

[slipslidingaway]

22. This from January, the question mentions SS and Medicare...

http://www.cqpolitics.com/wmspage.cfm?docID=news-000003004126

Hope you are right.

:)

"QUESTION: Mr. President-elect, budget experts, as you know, agree that the real key to controlling federal spending lies with the entitlement programs. How early do you plan on addressing Medicare and Social Security? And what will your approach be?


...As you point out, the key is going to be, medium term and long term, how do we bend the curve so that we start getting these deficits down to a manageable level? And entitlements are going to be a part of that.

We will -- we are working currently on our budget plans. We are beginning consultations with members of Congress around how we expect to approach the deficit. We expect that discussion around entitlements will be a part, a central part, of those plans. And I would expect that by February, in line with the announcement of at least a rough budget outline, that we will have more to say about how we’re going to approach entitlement spending, how we’re going to approach eliminating waste in government, one of Nancy’s tasks.

So we will have some very specific outlines in terms of how it’s going to be done..."


And the number of people enrolling in Medicare over the next 10-15 is significant.

[FreakinDJ]

24. In both the Town Hall Meeting and 2 days before he left for G-20

summit he addressed the need for Health Care Reform as a means to prevent the impending HUGE Budget Deficits forecast for when all the Baby Boomer's Retire, and as a means to "Strengthen our Economy"

(sorry I'm in resting in between working in the yard - so I can't look up the links for you)

It makes a lot of sense to me and given the way the GOP are ranting about and GAO's Budget Forecast it just may be possible to pull it off.

Now if we can only push Obama a little more towards "Single Payer Universal Health Care" it would be what America really wants

[slipslidingaway]

25. Post them when you get a chance or maybe I'll look for them

tomorrow. I fail to see how the HC reform will be able to address the projected costs of Medicare without a single-payer HC system.

[bvar22]

18. Thanks for the names.

Bookmarking for reference.
K&R

[slipslidingaway]

21. YW and TY :) n/t

[Kip Humphrey]

20. One bunch of people who got it right: DUers.

[slipslidingaway]

23. Yes some of them did, just like the Iraq War, Patriot Act, FISA n/t

[LWolf]

26. Kick, since

it's too late to recommend.

:kick:

[KittyWampus]

28. Oh, thanks!

[Telly Savalas]

29. I take it Nader doesn't mention Krugman

because Krugman's high profile in the media shoots a bit of a hole in his argument.