Yesterday I sat at my sewing machine trying to work out an intricate method of quilting. My mind usually wonders as I supervise the work of the machine, guiding when necessary, changing the tension when necessary, turning the material etc., this repetitive work becomes automatic after a while so I am able to multitask while doing this. I started thinking about TOO BIG TO FAIL…that term irks me to no end. When I start thinking about this issue I think back to an article I read last year, I’ll place a paragraph from it here and also the link for those who might be interested in reading it:
Not only have the world’s richest been the biggest beneficiaries of the monetary and fiscal policies since 2009, with the current 2170 global billionaires representing a 60% increase since 2009 according to UBS, but their consolidated net worth has more than doubled from $3.1 trillion in 2009 to $6.5 trillion now. At the same time, the net worth of the “bottom 90%” of the world’s not so lucky population has declined. Yet, somehow, the Fed is still revered.
Too big to fail? Does that mean for instance if I personally have billions of dollars like Bill Gates, Carlos Slim Heu and Family, Warren Buffet, Amanico Ortega, the Koch Family, the Walton Family and others I am too big to fail?
Capitalism is apparently a continuous merry go round of bubbles and then burst where the economy is concerned, but the too big to fail are actually bailed out by the too poor and too insignificant to matter when it comes to returning the economy to its former self, or at least attempting to do so through the use of the Central Banks. Why has the planet decided to allow this to happen with very little outrage?
Naturally, as in global financial conspiracies, the question arises: Is it possible that instead of representing the interests of the general population, what the central banks simply do is follow the instructions of a far smaller cabal, that of the world’s uber wealthy? I wonder…
A couple of days ago I watched a program on one of my favorite networks, Free Speech TV. I enjoy watching and listening to Democracy Now which is a news program featured on the network. An eye opening interview got my attention. Matt Taibbi and a whistle blower that worked for J.P. Morgan Chase were featured. I personally felt this information should be viewed by the members of PlanetPOV so I am placing it here for your viewing enjoyment/Enlightenment.
We worry about our elections; we wonder why our election results are what they are and what we can do to get better candidates into office so that we can stop the unequal, unjust society we live in. Will we ever be able to do this as long as we have laws that and a justice system that literally lets some in our nation get away with confiscating the wealth of others while incarcerating others for something as simple as stealing a loaf of bread? I say, as long as we allow things of this nature to take place in our nation. As long as we continue to elect politicians that are turning a blind eye to this type of activity or only administering a slap on the wrist after these things happen, we really don’t have much hope.
Monica
This is just logic no links and sighting cases or people.
WOW too big to fail???? Again this is not natural at all for all things in nature and financial, If it get to big it dies or in business becomes to corrupt.
Here is the Key to why these people do not get put in Jail (CEO , bankers, politicians and billionaires) .
It is called cascading Goals.
( the magic words saying we the top executives are above the Law )
These people just say our companies will act with in the law. Then other goals are stated etc ,etc.to pass down the levels of employees. Well Now, every employees is responsible to do and must operate by the law. Well not matter what you charge them with. The bank CEO , gov official or billionaire you have to get thru every single layer of the company or political stooges before you can get to them. Well Some one will have broken the law before them and he gets sued or arrested. If there are non guilty the top just bribes one person to fall on the sword. Eccentrically They bank, CEO , gov official or billionaires are above the law.
Simple correction in law to solve some of the problems but not all.
Make the law state that if anything illegal or laws broken by accidents or actions involved. the bank, CEO , gov official or billionaire are the first person to prosecute and put in jail.
Then go after the lower levels of employees who broke the law.
For all things have a time under nature and when your time runs out. look back and see all the good in your life before eternal darkness envelopes you.
More like this RSGmusic:
Sovereign immunity, or crown immunity, is a legal doctrine by which the sovereign or state cannot commit a legal wrong and is immune from civil suit or criminal prosecution.
In constitutional monarchies the sovereign is the historical origin of the authority which creates the courts. Thus the courts had no power to compel the sovereign to be bound by the courts, as they were created by the sovereign for the protection of his or her subjects. 🙂
HI MA, Is this the correction or the law as it exists?
IN other words i really do not understand where you are coming from.
If i understand this correct what you stated is how you can’t get to a executive CEO,Billionaire etc etc.
What i said as a correction is to change the law to make the CEO’s etc etc make them responsible first and if something goes wrong they are the first to go to jail.
This is civil law
Example and oil companies if found to have improper procedure and design and an oil well blows up and created the HUGH GIGANTIC spill in the gulf. Under this provision if the company BP is found of breaking the law which it did. the CEO is the first one to go to jail.
Congress
Second example if you pass a law/bill and a loophole is found the loophole is unconstitutional and can not be used until the supreme court rules on it.
The tax laws could use this so now you have on deductions and this would drive more taxes and tax cheats like romney crazy.
Hi RSGmusic!
My snark button was on when I answered your comment. I did hope you would understand what I meant. What I was trying to say, is that where too big to fail is concerned, the law has been changed and then changed back again slightly. A perfect example as to why what you are suggesting probably won’t work is this: A year before the Graham, Leach, Bliley Act repealing Glass Steagall was passed, Citicorp, a commercial bank holding company, merged with the insurance company Travelers Group in 1998 to form the conglomerate Citigroup, a corporation combining banking, securities and insurance services under a house of brands that included Citibank, Smith Barney, Primerica, and Travelers. Because this merger was a violation of the Glass–Steagall Act and the Bank Holding Company Act of 1956, the Federal Reserve gave Citigroup a temporary waiver in September 1998. Less than a year later, the Graham, Leach, Bliley Act was passed to legalize these types of mergers on a permanent basis. This thanks to conniving Republican Senators, the Federal Reserve and a democratic president, all done while the DOJ and the Supreme Court stood by and watched.
So you see, any law that is passed can be overturned especially if those who want the law overturned are in control of government. Let’s not forget about the Koch meetings that Scalia and Thomas attended. What were two justices of the Supreme Court doing at those meetings?
When the conservative financier Charles Koch sent out invitations for a political retreat in Palm Springs, he highlighted past appearances at the gathering of “notable leaders” like Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas of the Supreme Court.
The group, Common Cause, filed a petition with the Justice Department asking it to investigate whether Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas should have recused themselves in the case, involving Citizens United, because of their attendance at past retreats organized by the conservative financier Charles Koch, whose company operates a foundation that is a major contributor to political advocacy groups.
So as I said before, it appears our congress and possibly the Justices of the Supreme court are being influenced by billionaires and the corporations who are now buying our elections. Billionaires and heads of corporations are acting as the sovereigns did IMHO.
If you will recall, the too big to fail mantra being touted by the Justice department uses the fact that if we hurt the banks, or corporations for that manner, we hurt the economy and the people…because of jobs..right. Isn’t that the same case the Monarchs were making? “In constitutional monarchies the sovereign is the historical origin of the authority which creates the courts. Thus the courts had no power to compel the sovereign to be bound by the courts, as they were created by the sovereign for the protection of his or her subjects” I am referencing this to say it appears to me the Financial industry and large corporations are being let off the hook because their downfall would supposedly hurt the entire nation even the world as we saw in this latest debacle caused by Wall Street…because it would harm the economy. That is the same reasoning the Monarchs used, and it worked for centuries. It appears some would like to return us to those days. That is what I meant. 🙂
OK Monica, i got it now. Thanks for this.
with all friendship i have. Live long and prosper!!
Snark ( great )
Let’s get a complete understanding of the subject. Let me allow an Aljazeera special the opportunity to explain this from beginning to end and beyond:
The term and the act of considering banks and Wall Street financiers “TOO BIG TO FAIL” should irk us all.
Sabreen60 says:
11/11/2014 at 10:34 AM
This is what I said:
People like to talk about throwing the bankers in jail, but thanks to Clinton and Bush, MUCH of what they did was legal.
NO where did I say “bankers haven’t done ANYTHING ILLEGAL.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Precisely, just as you said, things that GLBA, WJC and GWB did helped bankers get away with making the mistakes they have made, however the people who like to talk about throwing the bankers in jail are looking at another word in your sentence “MUCH” and when you say much that means not everything they did was legal, so I am agreeing and also saying that is why many of the bankers involved should be in jail, not for whatever it is they did that because of the law allowed them to rob and steal from the consumer, but precisely because some of what they did was illegal, and they need to go to jail for it.
choicelady says:
11/11/2014 at 10:46 AM
Sued. Not imprisoned. Civil v criminal issues.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Technically you are correct, but that doesn’t mean a crime hasn’t been committed. This is exactly what it is all about and exactly why too big to fail irks me. People don’t get sued and lose cases because they did nothing wrong, they don’t lose cases because what they did wasn’t a crime. Banks are getting special treatment because they are being considered too big to fail by the DOJ not because some of things they did can’t be considered criminal.
choicelady and monica, thanks for a wonderful article and comment. I wonder what both of you think of this article that appeared not too long ago in Mother Jones:
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2014/07/eugene-scalia-court-antonin-financial-reform-dodd-frank
The gist of it seems to be that Eugene Scalia (yes, the son of that Scalia) is engaged in trying to destroy Dodd-Frank by way of a sort of “Death By 1000 Cuts” process. Do you think this tactic will work?
Kes, lawyers (pronounced liars) will be the scourge of America. I often wonder if they have a conscience?
In this case, Nirek and monica, the (rotten) apple sure didn’t fall far from the tree.
Thanks for posting this link Kes, I subscribe to Mother Jones so I had read the article. As I have said before and will say again, we, the citizens of the U.S. need to find ways to break this “Good Ole Boy” hold on our nation. Greed in some of the highest echelons of our government is going to be the death of us if we don’t.
Hi kes – I subscribe, but it’s on my ‘guilt pile’ of unread everything, so I appreciate your reminding me to read it!
This is my largest worry – the grinding away at really good legislation, bit by bit. As long as there is a veto pen, much of the large cuts won’t happen, but yes, this IS their game plan, and it’s already working.
If I have one criticism of our president it is that he believed that the GOP were not stupid enough to kill democracy by putting the nation on the brink of economic catastrophe in government shut down to GET sequestration and thus cuts to non-protected programs. He was wrong. They are.
Well, that should have worried us all in the 1990s when in law after law, we took down the barriers between us, the public, and the rapacious financial corporations in our nation. There was absolutely NO excuse for this march toward chaos since we’d just weathered the Savings & Loan disaster based on deregulation of that sector.
Some new things – derivatives, hedge funds, real estate investment trusts (REITs)etc. – were considered outside the financial sector and were allowed to grow and flourish with no regulation from the beginning. We caved under Clinton to the mantra under the GOP- deregulation encourages competition: competition brings wealth to all.
Uh huh.
When the crash came in 2008 (some of it started in 2007 but was ignored by the Bush administration) it came from ANOTHER unregulated sector, the mortgage brokers. It was they, not banks, that wrote the horrid subprime mortgages. Over 55% of the people shoved into subprimes actually qualified for prime rates, but they were new customers who were preyed upon by the brokers. What the banks MOSTLY did was buy these mortgages, but unlike the old days when they bought YOUR mortgage, they bought ‘bundles’- sort as if all our mortgages were shredded, and they bought strips of many bundled together. One mortgage could be owned, in “strips” by several different banks.
Banks – freed from protecting OUR money by Depression Era Glass-Steagall (named for two dead Senators) could use our SAVINGS and CDs etc. for their insecure gains. THAT is why they were ‘too big to fail’ – it would take down our money just as in 1929. That exceeded the capacity of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation to cover.
The bail out was meant by Bush and Paulsen to be without strings. Then came the 2008 election – and all this has changed.
First, the president had Tim Geitner (who seriously knew the way the system worked but used that knowledge to curtail the excesses at the president’s direction) monitor all federal loans WITH STRINGS that prevented payouts to CEOs and other executives until the loan was repaid. And they WERE repaid with interest in record time. No CEO bonus? Highly motivating!
Second, Dodd-Frank was written putting far more capital requirement for the solvency of any bank, and it permits – ready for this? – the government to NATIONALIZE any failing bank. In Dec, 2013, the Volcker Rule went into effect, restoring the firewall between bank money and OUR money. That is the firewall that Glass-Steagall had provided. It is now restored.
Here is a very good column on how it’s working:
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/04/opinion/paul-krugman-dodd-frank-financial-reform-is-working.html?_r=0
Banks and bankers were NOT prosecuted because while even progressive slept thru the 90s, they made sure what they did became perfectly legal. That is NOT true for mortgage brokers who, across the country, have been prosecuted for fraud by US Attorneys in almost every US District Court.
Other parts of the free-wheeling excesses of corporate finance capital have been reined in by the Consumer Protection agency and its oversight – this is what Elizabeth Warren was hired to run though she was never confirmed by the Senate. She went ahead and set it all up – and it is running without her or any other ‘official’ and doing just fine.
This is a lesson for us as consumers and voters – we cannot ever go to sleep and think all will be well. Every day predators who lobby on K Street for Wall Street will try to change laws that benefit us for those that benefit themselves. Democracy is not a spectator sport. We now have a VERY solid floor under us, we have made banks NOT too big too fail or even be nationalized, but with this new Congress, every day they will try to undermine what is just reclaimed. It is entirely up to us to stop them.
CL, when the banks were bailed out it would have been better not to. Instead we should have given the homeowners enough money to catch up and some to help them get ahead and allow them to refinance at a lower interest rate. Doing that would have cost us less and kept the banks going, too.
Hindsight, pretty good from my perspective.
Remember this happened under Bush – it was left to PBO to organize it in the best way possible, and he was able to get some major mortgage relief programs for people in trouble during the next two years.
He inherited the bailout – and I think the bailout per se was essential lest the banks fold. That would have utterly destroyed most of us on Main Street because it would have taken down all our savings as happened in 1929.
As it stands now, this can’t happen again. Unless we once again pay no attention and allow the law to be gutted.
CL, if the bailout had been of the home owners it would have save the banks, too.
By bailing out the banks there were many homes repossessed and some of those are now abandoned.
This was done in the trickle down theory instead of my theory of trickle up!
Exactly Nirek, we bailed out the banks with billions of dollars in interest free loans. We fine them in lawsuit cases brought by the DOJ for actual illegal acts, and the banks are allowed to write off most of the fine, that means we, the lowly people pay yet again with our tax dollars for some of the amounts these banks are able to write off, I agree with your trickle up idea, the homeowners should have been given a reprieve until we figured out what had happened, once we found out the banks had been operating illegally in many instances we should have incarcerated the bankers and their staff, the ones that were committing the illegal acts, bailed out the home owners, and with their payments once their loans had been regulated the banks would have been saved, but just saved, not allowed to continue to become even bigger and more monstrous. How can you change too big to fail by making the banks even bigger. We need to return to the principles of the Glass Steagall Reform Act.
Obviously we think alike, Monica. Raygun had the trickle down theory which amounts to us little people getting pissed on. Corporations and businesses can’t earn a cent without customers. Banks would not be without people taking loans and writing checks and such. It all starts with the regular citizen buying a house or some product. That is why I call it trickle up.
monicangela – they were NOT interest free loans! They were also quickly repaid because of the restrictions PBO put on bonuses. They have now all been paid back WITH interest.
The lunacy is in the banks’ capacity to deduct FINES from their income taxes. That is something never passed by Congress because the supermajority in the Senate lasted a whipping 6 months (Franken in, Ted Kennedy and Byrd out) so changes were blocked by the GOP.
But the loans were NOT interest free.
I don’t disagree, but we’re talking largely about your SAVINGS here – and the face amount vastly exceeded FDIC reserves. People would have lost everything. That is different from the homeowner mortgages – those should have been rewritten. The bailout did not focus on that but on the assets of banks, and Bush plus Paulsen took this course of action, and PBO made it stronger. Yes, we should have provided far stronger protection for mortgage rewrites – the laws exist after 2009 but were not well implemented.
While the Federal Reserve was publicly providing money to member banks at interest rates of up to 0.5% during the financial meltdown of 2008, a different, less public program bailed out Credit Suisse, Goldman Sachs, and Royal Bank of Scotland with short-term loans with an interest rate of only 0.01%. Those banks received the bulk of the help from this program, but Morgan Stanley, Citigroup, Bank of America, and BNP Paribas in France also received billions of dollars. If consumers like you and me wanted to borrow money for 28 days, we might have to turn to payday lenders or shady techniques, where the price of borrowing expressed in APR could be 500%, 1,000%, or even more. These banks borrowed at least $30 billion practically for free, and had the opportunity to use that cash as leverage to increase earnings during the economy’s toughest market in the recent recession.
The details of this “single-tranche open-market operation” (ST OMO) do not include exact amounts, and members of Congress did not even know the details of this program until now, despite oversight responsibilities. These transactions were kept mostly secret because releasing information about this type of bailout at the time could have had a disastrous effect on the reputations of these institutions, doing more harm than good in a time of crisis.
The Federal Reserve adopted a technique usually used for controlling the money supply and affecting interest rates, and turned it into a facility for extending loans to the banks without the loans being a part of the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) or bailout. Bloomberg explains how this special type of lending worked.
Under ST OMO, cash changed hands through repos, or repurchase agreements, which the central bank has used to move money in and out of the banking system for at least 60 years. In a repo, the dealer sells securities to the Fed and agrees to buy them back for a higher price after a set period of time…
When the central bank increases the money supply — by paying cash for securities in repos — interest rates tend to fall. When it drains cash from the system by selling securities in reverse repos, rates can climb. Using repos to provide emergency cash, a step the Fed announced on March 7, 2008, was a departure from that process…
It’s possible this plan helped save these banks from collapse, but was it necessary? And given the secretive nature of the program, would have there been any damage if the details were made public at the time, as was done for other aspects of the Wall Street bailout? What did these banks do with a practically free loan?
– See more at: http://www.consumerismcommentary.com/federal-reserves-secret-bailout/#sthash.D1RHQ1QJ.dpuf
Have to reply here.
This is so muddy I can’t totally unpack it, but your assertion about short term borrowing is not accurate. Credit unions and community banks can and have offered short term loans at low rates.
What you miss is that preferential rates for huge financial institutions is the system, always has been. That is NOT new. That is why CDFI and related non-banking institutions are growing by leaps and bounds with the aid of this administration’s policies FAVORING smaller institutions and systems for alternative banking. In Fruitvale, Oakland, an amazingly innovate “payday” lender and check cashing operation is bringing people in to offer loans at low rates then link them to better options such as credit unions. They do financial counseling for loans of larger size to people with really poor credit ratings.
All of this has been the outgrowth of the system we FINALLY paid attention to in 2007-08. But it would not be going so fast and strong without the NEW policies aimed at Main Street instead of Wall Street that enable these operations.
Critique without options is not getting us anywhere. We need to unpack what was from what can be and is happening – and then DAMNED WELL protect these advances. You’re rehashing policies from the Bush and Reagan era that are, slowly because of GOP pushback, changing things for the good and holding back the floodgates against the rapacious capitalists who want their old privileges back.
CL, IMO, no one explains this stuff better than you and Spandan. It’s amazing to me how you’re able to put all this in layman’s language so that even I can understand it. As you stated, if the banks and especially AIG had been allowed to fail, we would talking about The Great Depression 2.0. And I doubt if the economy would be any where close to the recovery we’ve seen.
People like to talk about throwing the bankers in jail, but thanks to Clinton and Bush, much of what they did was legal. Sure I would have loved to see CEOs and board members wearing stripes, but as you said what they did was legal. Now, they will at least not be able to take down the whole economy again.
We are finding out that much of what these bankers did was NOT legal.
And, it might be a good idea for you to watch the video in the article with Matt Taibbi and the Whistleblower, yet more proof that much of what the banks did was NOT legal. And unless we do more than what has been done, I’m afraid this could happen again, maybe not in the exact same manner, but the crooks always find a way.
CL’s Comment:
“When the crash came in 2008 (some of it started in 2007 but was ignored by the Bush administration) it came from ANOTHER unregulated sector, the mortgage brokers. It was they, not banks, that wrote the horrid subprime mortgages. Over 55% of the people shoved into subprimes actually qualified for prime rates, but they were new customers who were preyed upon by the brokers. What the banks MOSTLY did was buy these mortgages, but unlike the old days when they bought YOUR mortgage, they bought ‘bundles’- sort as if all our mortgages were shredded, and they bought strips of many bundled together. One mortgage could be owned, in “strips” by several different banks.
Banks — freed from protecting OUR money by Depression Era Glass-Steagall (named for two dead Senators) could use our SAVINGS and CDs etc. for their insecure gains. THAT is why they were ‘too big to fail’ — it would take down our money just as in 1929. That exceeded the capacity of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation to cover.”
This is what I was agreeing to. I don’t think she said or implied that everything the brokers or banks did with mortgages was legal.
It was they and banks: Bankers at JPMorgan Chase (JPM) invented credit-default swaps in the 1990s as a way for investors to protect themselves against loans going bad: One party makes regular payments to another in return for a guarantee to be made whole if a borrower defaults on its debt. What started as a simple hedging tool evolved into a playground for hedge funds and bank proprietary trading desks to speculate on debt, from corporate bonds to subprime mortgages. Banks packaged and traded indexes of the swaps, then sliced up the indexes and traded the slices. Investors made and lost money as the value of the swaps rose and fell, regardless of any actual defaults. “Derivatives were in the center of the storm” that led to the $182.5 billion government bailout of American International Group (AIG) in September 2008, one of the largest credit-swap users at the time, the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission said in its final report in 2011. The next year, CDS trades made by JPMorgan’s Bruno Iksil—the London Whale—ended up costing his bank $6.2 billion.
Was this legal, some say the act itself may have been legal, but the manner in which the banks went about lying to their investors and covering up the bad paper they were selling was NOT legal, that is why they are agreeing to pay these supposed BIG settlements, they know and knew what they were doing would not be considered legal if anybody actually figured it out.
And then there’s LIBOR, we can’t forget that:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQVzRiq0kJM
Still think the bankers haven’t done anything illegal?
This is what I said:
People like to talk about throwing the bankers in jail, but thanks to Clinton and Bush, MUCH of what they did was legal.
NO where did I say “bankers haven’t done ANYTHING ILLEGAL.
It wasn’t until she came forward with Taibbi that we knew any of this, and I think people don’t understand the complexity of forensic accounting under these circumstances. She was the only one with the information, now on tape, but when it is LEGAL to keep multiple sets of books, think how easy or not it would be for even a skilled forensic accountant to unsnarl the real illegalities from what was ‘business as usual’ under deregulation.
It’s hideously ironic that in a world that gave bankers almost free rein to do whatever they wanted, some of them STILL did things that now put them in jeopardy of arrest. Greed apparently is limitless.
That said, most of what occurred in banking during the 90s and 2000s was not CRIMINAL. And do note that it is the smaller banks that actually wrote mortgages rather than the banks that bought them where you find the actual criminality. Here in the CA Eastern District of the USDOJ, there have been prosecutions for fraud of MORTGAGE brokers – they are the ones who falsified information, lied to customers, and created major illegalities. What the Whistleblower notes is that in her firm they moved from buying to writing, and that is where they were vulnerable. Banks that merely bought worthless securities and traded falsely (based on equally false S&P ratings) did nothing illegal, period. It was utterly immoral and incredibly risky – NOT illegal. They’d already seen to that.
LIBOR….Illegal you bet it was and still is and the bankers were up to their necks in the rigging of it for their own interest and are being sued TODAY for their part in this illegal activity.
http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2014/11/11/suspect-in-libor-rigging-case-released-on-bail-in-london/?_r=0
I wouldn’t be too quick to blame the chickens unless I were maybe working for the Fox.
Sued. Not imprisoned. Civil v criminal issues.
This is the real problem – we were not watching closely enough, and we thought the existing laws would protect us. We didn’t pay enough attention to the fact many new instruments – derivatives, hedge fund transactions, etc. – were never regulated and that GLB shattered the most fundamental protection of all. We can’t let that happen again!
Well that did worry us in the 1990’s. We were up against republican thieves then just as we are today. We owe this to Phil Graham (R) Texas, Jim Leach (R) Iowa, Thomas J. Bliley Jr. (R) Virgina and none other than the wizard himself William Jefferson Clinton (D) Arkansas.
The Graham Leach Bliley Act repealed part of the Glass–Steagall Act of 1933, removing barriers in the market among banking companies, securities companies and insurance companies that prohibited any one institution from acting as any combination of an investment bank, a commercial bank, and an insurance company. With the bipartisan passage of the Gramm–Leach–Bliley Act, commercial banks, investment banks, securities firms, and insurance companies were allowed to consolidate. Furthermore, it failed to give to the SEC or any other financial regulatory agency the authority to regulate large investment bank holding companies. ”The legislation was signed into law by President Bill Clinton.
A year before the law was passed, Citicorp, a commercial bank holding company, merged with the insurance company Travelers Group in 1998 to form the conglomerate Citigroup, a corporation combining banking, securities and insurance services under a house of brands that included Citibank, Smith Barney, Primerica, and Travelers. Because this merger was a violation of the Glass–Steagall Act and the Bank Holding Company Act of 1956, the Federal Reserve gave Citigroup a temporary waiver in September 1998. Less than a year later, GLBA was passed to legalize these types of mergers on a permanent basis.
Graham who btw still works as an investment banker for UBS is still involved with banking and members of congress, he was also along with his wives involved heavily with the Enron scandal.
As for the opposition to what caused this too big to fail debacle, see some of it here:
And still today, Senator Sanders continues to try to enlighten the public. It isn’t that we did not care, were not vigilant, etc., it is that we were as we are today powerless against the Foxes who are evidently in control of the hen house.
So after the mid-term elections I ask: Are we vigilant now? Would we like to do something now that we didn’t do in the 1990’s? How much has the Consumer Protection Agency set up by Elizabeth Warren returned to individuals who were robbed during the latest thievery by the Foxes? It isn’t that the citizens do not care, it is that IMHO, the citizens realize they do not stand a chance against a militarized police force that will use military tactics to keep you from protesting, ruin you personally through NSA tactics, and the list could go on, but I’m sure you know what I am talking about.
Monica, Bernie is fighting hard on behalf of all Americans. He may run in the primaries but I believe it will be to get into the debates and spread his opinion on inequality of wealth. He tells the truth as opposed to so many other politicians. It will be enjoyable to hear him in the debates. He will not let the others get away with their lies.
I truly hope so Nirek, right now, Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren explain the plight of the majority of Americans as well as or better than any other politician I have heard. 🙂
I seriously disagree that we were vigilant in the 90s. I worked with labor folks who tried to get progressives in NY engaged in opposing the deregulation, and NO ONE CARED. They simply could not be bothered, and some even thought it was a good idea.
Are we vigilant now? I hope so, but it will be an uphill fight because of this Congress. They are focused on defunding CPA, cutting the regulatory rules, and defunding the enforcement of them. They can do huge harm, but they have to be called out on that.
And yet I get from Progs the knee jerk rant that Dodd-Frank and CPA are ‘meaningless’ demanding we ‘bring back Glass-Steagall’. Anyone who says that is a fool because they did not know then or now what G-S did, what the Volcker Rule does. When rant exceeds reason and understanding, it blocks real action, and that is something to fear. We may yet be headed to Great Depression 2.0
WOW Monica! You hit on a subject I care very much about.
When the corporations deemed “too big to fail” were bailed out, I was pissed off! Let them fail, put the execs who drove the corporation into failure in jail and confiscate all their misbegotten wealth to be distributed to the people they hurt!
Do this just once and watch how the execs of other corporations act. They will make better decisions with investors money!
The only thing that is too big to fail is the USA, in my opinion.
Well done with your article! Great subject and the link and video are excellent as well.
I saw them interviewed Monica.I too am appalled by that phrase.They should be allowed to fail,and some of them in charge should be thrown in jail.Maybe then some fairness can be brought back and the middle class rejuvenated.It is the decline of the middle class that cost the Democrats the mid terms IMO.Corporations are making out like bandits while average Americans have seen their wages stagnate.
Good post
Beatlex – there is not one damned thing the government can do about wages other than raise the bottom. Period. We are NOT a socialist state – and even socialist states such as Sweden and Germany have no control over that. In European controls, they may specify the RATE of increase to slow things down but cannot increase wages at all.
Too big to fail was structured to be LEGAL so wanting bankers arrested? Exercise in futility.
It will be so much up to us over the next years to watch these GOP corporatists like hawks. We have to be sure of our ground on what laws and regulations they are trying to change – and protest loudly when they undermine US in favor of THEM.
I agree 100% Beatlex, it is the decline of the middle class that cost the democrats the mid terms and the same is going to cost the country to go into a huge recession and then depression if we don’t start facing the fact that we have a minute minority of the people of this country stealing the assets of the nation with both fist, and getting away with it. What would happen if you and I decided to go out tomorrow and rob just about everyone in the neighborhood, get caught, accept a plea bargain and get away with paying back a fraction of what we stole from the neighbors and the neighbors got little to none of their property back. How long do you think we would last? And, if the neighbors found out later portions of the fine we were paying were tax deductible and that they were going to yet again have to help pay for what we did, what do you think would happen to us? Why isn’t the same thing happening to the bankers or something worse, that’s my question. 🙂