Congress Considers Reinstating Glass-Steagall Act
Very interesting - if Congress actually intends to pass this. (Or if the banks let them!) The repeal also removed protections that kept banking and insurance interests separate, which accelerated the Wall St. meltdown:
Dec. 28 (Bloomberg) -- A one-page proposal gaining traction in Congress could turn back the clock on Wall Street 10 years, forcing the breakup of banks, including Citigroup Inc.
Lawmakers in both parties, seeking to prevent future financial crises while soothing public anger over bailouts and bonuses, are turning to an approach that’s both simple and transformative: re-imposing sections of the 1933 Glass-Steagall Act that separated commercial and investment banking.
Those walls came down with passage of the Gramm-Leach- Bliley Act of 1999. A proposal to reconstruct them, made by U.S. Senators John McCain and Maria Cantwell on Dec. 16, would prevent deposit-taking banks from underwriting securities, engaging in proprietary trading, selling insurance or owning retail brokerages. The bill could also force the unwinding of deals consummated during the financial crisis, including Bank of America Corp.’s acquisition of Merrill Lynch & Co.
“The impact on Wall Street would be severe,” Wayne Abernathy, an executive vice president at the American Bankers Association, said in a telephone interview.
[...] Splitting banking functions needed for the smooth operation of the economy from riskier securities and trading activities was proposed earlier this year by the Group of Thirty, a nonprofit organization made up of former government officials and bankers, including Paul Volcker, a former Fed chairman and head of the president’s Economic Recovery Advisory Board.
The group said the crisis spread like a contagion from firm to firm, putting both commercial banks and securities companies at risk. To prevent a domino effect, systemically important financial institutions shouldn’t be allowed to engage in proprietary trading that involved “particularly high risks” or “serious conflicts of interest,” the group said.
While that would not bar banks from underwriting securities, as some U.S. lawmakers want, it might force them to shutter or sell trading divisions. The financial system has “failed the test of the marketplace,” Volcker said in January. He added that “it’s been proven that they’re unmanageable, the existing conglomerates.”
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Fat chance…
statusquObama, change you can only pretend in
it looks like another DLC trial baloon.
Float the idea, then let it die quietly. Typical (R)ahmocrat tactic.
They have been floating that idea since last december.
Some stuff you can't make up!
Totally agree. It's just a trial balloon to "appease" the left, but it's not going to work this time. Rahm's former boss, Bill Clinton, was the douche who repealed it in the first place.
We want them to actually do it, which means they won't.
Constituents of his, like myself, know when he speaks, it is not a trial baloon, he is actually fighting for it. Look at his votes, and you will see few if any CYA votes. He has broad support in his district. If anything he is the antiRham.
Crony Capitalism is such a bargain: hand over taxpayer trillions to the Banksters in exchange for campaign fund millions and the prospect of future lucrative lobbying work with a future Congress…
The Rats are offloading this ship cause it is going down…
statusquObama, change you can only pretend in
and rushing out to see Avatar
I think you mean "Dune" or "Dances with Wolves".
http://fandangogroovers.wordpress.com/2009/12...
http://www.farpointforums.com/showthread.php?...
James Hack-eron. Hah. Throw a few hundred million in effects at something and people like that think it's a good substitute for "plot".
We've all noticed that 'considering' in that sentence.....
"Congress considering ..."
I have seen where those in Congress are already putting together 'investigation committees..' for this incident on Christmas day with the terrorist...
wouldn't it be nice if they had been a 'little more interested' in investigating the 20-plus SPECIFIC warnings .../ 'put-options' on United and American Airlines that the SEC ignored...considering whomever made those..never claimed the almost $5M ....(one would think they'd be a little curious, there)...etc..
break up the too big to fails--and shove a wedge between some and the business as usual group! We just have to keep it on the radar and not let it die! Call Congress and tell them you like it.1.800.828.0498
it will be the first smart thing the lawmakers did in the last 9 years
Goodnight, Frau Blücher
Can't wait to see the push back on this one from Big Casino (Wall Street) and their pals in the WH. Geithner, Summers and Bernanke are pooping their pants over this one.
Can't you just hear them now on the Sunday morning pundit parade??:
"We have proposed a set of very robust regulations but lets not throw the baby out with the bath water...we don't want to slow the recovery by over reacting and making a bad situation worse."
Kinda like the public option surrender: "The enemy of the good" again.
"I can't keep doing this on my own with these...people."
Are you sure we have their permission? I mean, deregulation being such a HUGE success, and all, over the past decade.
Won't happen in this Administration that has Put Banks First and Everything else Second.
Sadly, you're right. After the health care reform debacle, I don't see Obama and the Democrats passing any real reform here.
This is pie in the sky. Make mine pumpkin. With whipped cream.
"Trust no one, Mr. Mulder." - Well-Manicured Man
that Glass-Steagall is re-instated.
It's over
make rules for the banks when the banks control what congress says and does?
getting the fascist, imperial overlords to approve that.
While the Democrats are...
Corruption favors the wealthy.
be joking.
:(
Corruption favors the wealthy.
as he was part of the last big banking-type failure...
taking a chance of dredging that up... dredge, please.
is for this just like he was in favor of campaign finance reform.
...sponsored the repeal of Glass-Steagal, and he was McCain's lead economic adviser. If McCain had been elected, he would have made Gramm Secretary of the Treasury. What more needs be said on the subject?
"In theory theory and practice are alike. In practice they are very different."
How 'bout this picture of Bubba happily signing the bill.
Clinton's Treasury Secretary, Larry Summers mentor and Obama campaign advisor Bob Rubin is there in the background....Smiling.
Hmmmm.
"I can't keep doing this on my own with these...people."
The Republicans will be for it until they take power, funded by the Banksters who always contribute to both 'Parties', then they won't be for it any more.
This is Kabuki Theater.
The Ruling Class is in charge.
It is the B-O-M-B, the Bush - Obama - McCain - Bailout
Also Known As (aka)
Paulson's Plunder
aka
Government Sachs
aka…
statusquObama, change you can only pretend in
Geitner's Gorging...
Rubin's Re-run...
Corruption favors the wealthy.
This will happen right alongside Change 2.0, single-payer health care, a new Fairness Doctrine, and Bush/Cheney being convicted of war crimes.
The check's in the mail.
"I can't keep doing this on my own with these...people."
enough with the 'consideration'...
go go go... and hurry up.
what else they going to say? Hot dogs and balloons for the kids?
"Reinstating Glass-Steagall Act"
This would be a good start.
I hope this gains huge support across the board. It would be good for everybody except the banksters.
*fingers crossed*
"I know that there are people who do not love their fellow
man, and I hate people like that! " ~ Tom Lehrer (1928 - )
You forget any legislation has to be approved by the very industry it is directed at these days before it gets sent to our Preznut.
Shares of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were up big yesterday on the Treasury Department's Christmas Eve announcement that it would issue blank check support to the troubled lenders.
(Bose George, an analyst at Keefe, Bruyette & Woods, wrote in a note to investors Monday. "The shares have no long term value," he wrote. "This reinforces our view that the common shares will eventually trade to zero.")
NO!!!! Ya don't SAY!!!!!!!
Oh wait, yes I can believe it.
anyone else noticed?
Dangerous times.
Sure. The Senate can get 60 votes for this. No problem.
Let's see how far to the right they go before they fall off of the edge of this flat world.
so he can teach them how to bend Congress to your will.
I hope they do this but they probably won't.
Glass-Steagal worked for 60 years. Everybody made money, the middle class grew, banks did banking, traders traded, what's not to like.
Dust it off, bring it back, divest the "too big to fails" like Ma Bell and the oil trusts.
Make sure your representatives know you want this.
yes every "seems" to be okay doesn't it?
until St. Ronnie deregulated EVERYTHING...initiated "trickle down"...supply side..."free markets"...
Did anyone see Steve "Free Markets" Forbes on the CBS Early Show today? He also made it a point of mentioning DUHbya's tax cuts of '03 are scheduled to expire in '10. Guess what HE wants?!
It's always hard to go back. Look at how tax rates have fallen in the past 30 years. Reps like to crow about how great things were when Reagan was in office but try asking one if they'd be willing to pay those taxes today and they'll blow a gasket. The Graham-Leach-Bliley Act nearly destroyed this country but it won't be repealed.
“The impact on Wall Street would be severe,” Wayne Abernathy, an executive vice president at the American Bankers Association, said in a telephone interview.
Severe?? You sullied fuck. You want severe??? Look at the unemployment rate. Look at the foreclosure rate. Look at the banks refusal to loan money to business.
WE DON'T GIVE A FUCK IF YOU GET HURT. IN FACT, WE WANT YOU TO FIND YOUR PERSONAL ECONOMY CRIPPLED SO YOU GET A TASTE OF THE OTHER SIDE OF WHAT YOUR INDUSTRY HAS WROUGHT.
CAN YOU FUCKING HEAR ME NOW!?
... people are going to recoil in horror at the prospect of Wall Street getting hurt.
Because we've let people believe that they too can become rich. The American Dream is to have more than the people around you -- it's based in Randian masturbatory fantasy and fueled by Republican ideology. Make sure to cut taxes, kiddies, that top 1% might be you some day ... Just make sure to fuck over your neighbors in any way possible to make sure they you might do better than them ...
I, and most of my fellow citizens, have not a chance of ever getting there. And yet huge droves are willing to sacrifice the reality of today for the false promises and empty hopes of "what if I suddenly and inexplicably become rich?"
The damn baby boomers turned us into a nation of consumers who don't care about anyone but ourselves. We made this mess, and I have a nasty feeling we're going to get a lot more where this came from.
The actual facts show the US to have one of the most rigid caste systems in the western world. Your parents' income is a very strong predictor of what yours will be - in other words there is very little generational social mobility.
The American dream exists, it's just in places like Denmark, Norway, Finland and Canada.
http://www.stateofworkingamerica.org/tabfig/2...
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/14/national/cl...
"In theory theory and practice are alike. In practice they are very different."
the dangling carrot school of social mobility is alive and well among the dreamers in our America.
with educational disparities.
Jonathon Kozol - "Savage Inequalities"
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jonathan-kozol/...
http://www.learntoquestion.com/seevak/groups/...
http://www.mindfully.org/Reform/2005/American...
the ABA cheered on irresponsible financial deregulation (understatement), then when the banks/wall st detonated the entire economy they lied back on their cheap mattress, spread eagle, and waited for the govt's hot cash injection.
but now, NOW!, the ABA believes that the regulation that prevented this type of economic clusterfuck for decades has the balls to talk about its "severe" impact on wall street if it is reinstated. sullied fuck indeed.
*virtual spits at ABA*
Reinstating Glass-Steagal ? About as much chance of that happening as getting single payer or a true public option in the final healthcare " reform " bill . “The impact on Wall Street would be severe,” ? Bluesam's post said it very well as far as I am concerned . Count on it , they'll protect Wall Streets interest here too just as they've protected the interests of the healthcare / Insurance industry ... and Wall Street . Main street over Wall Street ? Ain't ever going to happen .
I'll tell Mom!
if this happens, which I doubt, will be the most significant financial reform that the Democratic Party could ever do. The repeal was another kiss left to the country by the sucker of bank phalluses, Phil Gramm. It is the single most signifcant cause of the Financial Crisis of 2008-on:
From Wikipedia:
The repeal enabled commercial lenders such as Citigroup, which was in 1999 the largest U.S. bank by assets, to underwrite and trade instruments such as mortgage-backed securities and collateralized debt obligations and establish so-called structured investment vehicles, or SIVs, that bought those securities. Elizabeth Warren co-author of All Your Worth: The Ultimate Lifetime Money Plan (Free Press, 2005) (ISBN 0-7432-6987-X) and one of the five outside experts who constitute the Congressional Oversight Panel of the Troubled Asset Relief Program, has said that the repeal of this act contributed to the Global financial crisis of 2008–2009.
Good luck getting it reinstated, Congressman Hinchey.
Democratic Party progressive, Vietnam veteran and proud Union member for 41 years
..but wouldn't have much long term effect unless you roll back tax cuts to pre-Reagan levels - especially the Estate tax and Capital gains.
"In theory theory and practice are alike. In practice they are very different."
Ding ding! Today's winner.
Rush Limbaugh is what a smart person thinks a stupid bigot sounds like.
Considering? Yes.
Reinstating? Not so much.
"Anyone that makes less than $150K in this country, has no business voting Republican."
I love stroke job pieces like this. The problem is no climax.
"Anyone that makes less than $150K in this country, has no business voting Republican."
Can the make it retroactive?
Volker should be treasury secretary, not that Geithner bitch.
Not happening. Barry's friends won't allow it.
NOBODY 2012
Rahmabama won't like that. No no, it just won't do. Something will have to be done on behalf of Government-Sachs.
Rush Limbaugh is what a smart person thinks a stupid bigot sounds like.
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