Deregulation was an philosophy started by Reagan, ignored by Bush I, it returned to favor with Gingrich during the nineties, and flourished under the Republican Senate, House, and Executive branch, where it had free reign and could not be questioned or debated….
One could call it the “Bush policy’. and still remain within the bounds of reason.
But Maria,
Why on earth are you bringing up the Financial Services Modernization Act of 1999?
That bill was not one of deregulation. It just repealed the Glass-Steagall Act… allowing banks to compete against each other across state lines, to compete with other interests in the securities and insurance fields…
They still had to follow the same rules and regulations that were already in place for those fields…
Because of this act, Travelers Insurance was able to merge with Citibank, forming the new entity: Citigroup…… As of right now, we aren’t bailing them out… Why? Because they are not the problem…
THIS is the problem….
The Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000.
This act repealed the accord which banned single stock futures. The legislation also provided certainty that any products offered by banking institutions would not be regulated if they were sold as futures contracts.
This bill, which was never debated in the House, and was never debated in the Senate, created what became known as the Enron loophole, The “loophole” was drafted by Enron Lobbyists working with senator Phil Gramm, who until recently, was John McCain’s chief economic adviser.
An attempt to repeal the policy was vetoed by President Bush in 2008. Several Democratic Legislators introduced legislation to close the loophole from 2000-2006, but were unsuccessful due to Republican control of the House and Senate.
The act specifically banned regulation of credit default swaps. These unregulated instruments, insurance policies against default on risky investments like mortgage backed securities, necessitated the government bailout of insurer A.I.G.
Those who try to blame Clinton and his tenure for today’s crises, now can be lumped on the same level of credibility as those criminals who are videotaped and shown on national television doing their crime, and when brought before a judge, say it was their mother……
The Republican Party owns this financial crises… The first step is to hold them accountable in the election coming up on November 4th… They started it, they sneaked it through Congress, they covered it up, and received billions of dollars in amounts of bonus money for doing so…
You and I will pay their bill…
Go ahead, vote Republican if you want to… but in doing so you’re just trying to put out our nation’s financial fires with gasoline, not water…..
kavips 
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September 21, 2008 at 2:47 am
Maria Evans
So you’re citing stuff that passed the House 262-60 and the Senate unanimously and was signed by Clinton as the reason only repubicans are to blame?
You just don’t get it, everyone was involved. Deregulation was hip back then, except with a very small contingent of House members from both parties.
And I was talking about the Financial Services Modernization Act of 1999 because the article we were discussing mentioned rolling back the Glass Stegall Act as a reason for the current crisis.
September 21, 2008 at 3:08 pm
kaivps
Maria, you’re nuts. What’s a smart girl like you doing in the Republican Party anyway?
Did you not read what happened? Senator Gramm took a rider that deregulated commodities, hid it in a 11,000 page bill, a bill that was desperately needed to pay for 3 months of government services already past, which still had to be signed by the president as soon as possible, and only after the 11,000 page bill was passed, did someone actually read it, and realize exactly what was attached to it…
After it was discovered, Democrats tried to disable that rider, but Republicans would not allow it… Bush refused to do anything about it.
Today’s entire financial mess came from Phil Gramm ,who was McCain’s former chief economic adviser…Gramm’s wife Wendy, who worked for Enron, used that clause to bilk Californians out of 40 billion dollars in their electrical rates…. Amaranth Gas tried to use that clause to inflate the cost of natural gas. Oil companies used that clause for force gas up over $4.00 a gallon…
It IS the Republican’s fault… Trying to blame a few Democrats who did not know about the hidden rider, and just wanted to fund the government, is pointless, silly, and actually rather hilarious…
(You weren’t actually making fun of Republicans and I thought you were serious, were you?) Knowing you, that would actually make more sense.
September 21, 2008 at 6:00 pm
Maria Evans
I’ve always thought that blind partisanship made people ignorant, and again I’m correct. Let’s try this again: Deregulation, of all kinds, had support from both sides of the isle.
You said the problem was the Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000. That was introduced by republicans AND democrats in the House and Senate in December of 2000. And I showed you the numbers from the House and Senate votes on the final form of the legislation and it was unanimous in the Senate and a wide majority in the House.
Unfortunately your information on this topic is obviously coming from David Corn writing for Mother Jones, which just isn’t non biased reporting in any way shape or form.
In fact, Corn only mentions Gramm and Lugar as a sponsors of the legislation in the Senate, and fails to mention that Tom Harkin and Tim Johnson, two Democrats were co sponsors. The legislation also had democrats as co sponsors for the House version of the legislation. Now, were Harkin and the other democrat cosponsors too stupid to know what was going on? Doubtful.
The article also takes great pride in mentioning that Phil Gramm had a relationship with Enron. So did a lot of legislators. In fact, John Kerry and Teresa Heinz had a relationship with Enron. Ken Lay was on the board of one of Teresa’s environmental foundations for over 10 years, and stayed on the board until right before Kerry threw his hat in the ring to run for president. The Lays and the Heinz-Kerrys hung out socially. Teresa once touted Lay as a great environmentalist. I’ve been chuckling over that one for several years now.
But that’s really not my point, the point is with Enron that many legislators on both sides of the isle had long relationships with Enron. I know it may be painful to hear that, but it’s the truth.
And if I was going to crown someone the “King of Deregulation” it wouldn’t be Phil Gramm, I’d put the crown on Alan Greenspan’s head.
September 22, 2008 at 11:55 am
Apologies To Maria… Financial Disclosure « kavips
[…] then decided to mock their hard-stretched fuzzy accusations, by publishing really illuminating ones in sharp contrast, ones that point the the finger of culpability directly on Phil Gramm, who as […]
September 22, 2008 at 11:55 am
Apologies To Maria… Financial Disclosure « kavips
[…] then decided to mock their hard-stretched fuzzy accusations, by publishing really illuminating ones in sharp contrast, ones that point the the finger of culpability directly on Phil Gramm, who as […]
July 2, 2010 at 10:32 am
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