Monday, February 13, 2012
A Pox Up Both Their Poop-Shoots
The Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act passed 90-8 in the Senate and was signed into law by a Democratic President. The Commodity Futures Modernization Act (considered by many economists to be the far more deleterious of the two pieces of legislation) passed 292-60 (50 Republicans and 10 Democrats) in the House and by unanimous consent in the Senate and was also signed into law by a Democratic President. Ergo, folks, even if you've committed yourself fully to the deregulation argument pertaining to what in fact caused the financial crisis, the reality remains the inconvenient same; i.e., that the financial meltdown of 2008 was a completely and totally BIPARTISAN fiasco. I mean, I'm sorry about it and all, but it is what it is.
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With this post Will expounds on what he thinks is the obvious point that many don't get. He's the wise Moderate lecturing the partisans on both sides who are pointing fingers at each other...
...but what he doesn't get is that Conservative economic principals caused the financial crisis! And we know he doesn't get it because he authored a post after this one where he (yet again) mentions the Republican myth that the CRA had something to do with the housing bubble!
And in this post he appears to poo-poo the "deregulation argument" (how about "deregulation reality"?).
Deregulation is the Conservative's mantra. In this case, yes, a bunch of Democrats acted like Conservatives. Clinton embraced Conservative economic principals and called it the "third way". This is why dmarks is SO SO WRONG when he insists Clinton was a Liberal.
These conservative principles were able to get the votes of all but 10 Democratic members of the House of Representatives and ALL Democratic members of the Senate (on the Commodity Futures Modernization Act, I'm saying).............As for my feeling on deregulation, I agree with those who say that the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act didn't deregulate very much and that the Commodity Futures Modernization Act probably did more damage. Was deregulation a factor in the meltdown at all? Possibly. Was it in fact the only factor? Absolutely not.
So, what do you think about Chomsky calling our duly elected President a war criminal who should be prosecuted via a Nuremberg style proceeding? I mean, is that guy a frigging idiot or what?
Deregulation was "possibly" a factor????????!
It's a complicated problem, wd. I'm still trying to ferret my my through the damn thing (as opposed to you, who swallows hook, line, and sinker whatever Thom Hartmann says on the radio). Right now, I'm looking at the FED and their idiotic policy of artificially lowering interest rates.............And what about it, wd, more Republicans voted against the CFMA than did Democrats. Does that make the Democrats more conservative than the Republicans? Barney Frank, to his credit, voted no.
Yes, I do like "swallowing" the truth. And Thom Hartmann is a much smarter individual then me.
You have a link to a website where it shows how each memeber of Congress voted on both of these pieces of legislation? If so, please share.
Also, what about this useful idiot Ron Wyden working with Paul Ryan to dismantle Medicare? I mean, is that guy a frigging idiot or what?
Barney Frank is a national treasure. We should all mourn his decision to retire from the House.
http://www.govtrack.us/congress/vote.xpd?vote=h2000-603......I went through each no vote and counted 50 Republicans and and only 10 Democrats (again, Mr. Frank, to his credit, being one). Kind of mucks up your convenient little paradigm, doesn't it (funny that Mr. Hartmann and Ms. Maddow have never mentioned this, huh)? Good guys versus bad guys - yeah, right.
Mr. Wyden us a brave and courageous politician who I hope runs for President in 2016. Not only will I vote for him, I will campaign for him.............Still no condemnation of Mr. Chomsky, huh?
Will, the vote you linked to is for the "Consolidated Appropriations Act". It was an Omnibus spending bill that, according to Mother Jones, contained CFMA... but it was "slipped in" by Phil Gramm.
Mother Jones explains that, "few lawmakers had either the opportunity or inclination to read the version of the bill Gramm inserted. 'Nobody in either chamber had any knowledge of what was going on or what was in it', says a congressional aide familiar with the bill's history".
The "Yea" and "Nay" votes were in regards to the Omnibus spending bill; they weren't voting specifically on the CFMA. The Democrats were tricked into voting for it.
My "paradigm" isn't "mucked up"... the Democrats are still the good guys and the Republicans are still the bad guys... IMHO.
Will: Still no condemnation of Mr. Chomsky, huh?
No. He makes some good points.
Will: Mr. Wyden is a brave and courageous politician who I hope runs for President in 2016.
Ron Wyden = Useful idiot.
I haven't heard anything about him running for president in 2016. I sure hope he doesn't. I think it's about time for a real progressive.
BULLSHIT! The Democrats knew exactly what they were signing. In fact, the original bill as it was brought up in the House passed 377-4! If anything, the compromise that passed both houses of Congress cost Republican support. Mother Jones is an absolute partisan piece of garbage.............The Democrats were tricked. Except for Barney Frank, of course.............http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodity_Futures_Modernization_Act_of_2000
Somehow I knew that would be your reaction.
The author of the article is David Corn. I absolutely believe it is the truth.
But you're right about Barney Frank... clearly he's far too smart to fall for Republican dirty tricks like this... I'm kidding... I don't know why he voted against it.
Read the Wikipedia post, wd. 377-4. I haven't seen a more bipartisan vote than that since the Senate rejected the Kyoto protocols, 95-0, back in the '90s.
Will: Read the Wikipedia post, wd. 377-4. I haven't seen a more bipartisan vote...
That bill never became law. I don't know what the bill that got that vote looked like (compared to the bill that WAS signed into law), but it appears to me that it got significantly worse. And the law that was signed by Clinton, as I already pointed out, was slipped into an Omnibus spending bill by Gramm.
He actually (initially) argued against the legislation... because it didn't do everything he wanted it to (didn't deregulate enough). How many Democrats would have voted for the bill if a separate vote had been held... or they knew it had been slipped into the Omnibus spending bill (as revealed by David Corn in his Mother Jones article)?
Significantly less I believe. They were tricked into voting for it... I'm sticking by that assertion.
You don't believe Phil Gramm is to blame at all?
wd, the final bill lost 50 Republican votes. That should have made it better, no?............I'm not an expert on these pieces of legislation, either. But from what I can gather, the CFMA was a lot more damaging than the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (which I gather didn't change the landscape all that much) and, yes, for his promulgating of that monstrosity, Mr. Gramm is definitely one of the "villains" (I still rank Greenspan much higher, though).
Will: ...the final bill lost 50 Republican votes. That should have made it better, no?
You don't know that. You're (incorrectly, IMO) assuming that the Republicans voted against the Omnibus spending bill because they didn't like the changes to CFMA. Perhaps they voted "Nay" due to objections with other sections in this huge omnibus bill? (I think that's much more likely).
David Corn...is'nt that the guy with no lips from MSNBC?
wd, doesn't a bill that Republicans rejected at a rate of 5:1 (50 to 10) de facto make it a better piece of legislation than the previous (using your the Republicans are evil and always wrong logic) one?............The Democrats were tricked. LOL Sure as hell an argument for, you know, READING the legislation.............Yeah, Rusty, he's the one, spinning like a top trying to absolve the Democrats of any responsibility. Almost as pathetic as wd, the guy.
You're claiming that the Republicans who voted "Nay" did so specifically because they didn't like the changes to CFMA. PLEASE clue me in regarding HOW you know this. Is there an article or book that polled them all regarding their reasons for their "Nay" votes?
Maybe you (personally) called them all and had a long conversation with each (or at least asked them if their vote had anything AT ALL to do with CFMA)?
No? There's no book or article? You didn't call them? I didn't think so.
btw, this was one of those "urgent" bills (because it dealt with government funding) that needed to be passed ASAP. And, as David Corn pointed out, most congresspersons didn't know Gramm had slipped it in. How can someone read something he does not know is there?
Read David Corn's article if you're interested in the truth about what happened (I assume you aren't).
btw, I'm not trying to absolve the Democrats of any responsibility. They did vote "Yea" in favor of an earlier version of the bill. But the story regarding how the final version became law isn't quite as black and white as you make it out to be. I guess Will Hart doesn't do nuance.
This isn't even remotely funny anymore. You cite (with a modicum of plausibility) that deregulation was a major factor in the financial collapse. But when I show you that the most deleterious piece of deregulatory legislation was OVERWHELMINGLY bipartisan, you go into this idiotic, psychotic, rank, partisan spin mode. 377-4!!!!!!!!!!! And I have no idea why the 50 Republicans AND Barney Frank didn't vote for the Senate-House compromise. But the final bill isn't infamous for the omnibus spending component. It's infamous for the CFMA. And here BOTH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! parties are culpable up the ass-crack, ya' baby.
If you don't know what's in a piece of legislation, you don't vote on it! Are you seriously saying that the Democrats wouldn't have voted for something that virtually every one of them voted for previously? Mr. Gramm singlehandedly made the new product so odious that the Dems would have seen the light and turned their noses up at it? That's so idiotic that even you shouldn't be peddling it. And, what, the 50 Republicans did the right thing for the wrong reason? That, too?
Funny, nothing in Wikipedia about the Republicans "slipping it in". And what about the Gramm--Leach--Bliley Act that 38 Democrats also signed onto? Did the bad-ass Republicans trick them into that one, too?............Nobody like you, wd. Nobody. Even your liberal buddies think that you're a frigging nut and have told me so on Facebook. I didn't want to say this but you push me to answer you.
I'm not implying anything. I just said that 5 times as many Republicans voted the bill down as Democrats.......And YOU don't know what their reason was, either. YOU'RE ASSuming that it was done because of spending and have zero evidence for THAT.......And as Wikipedia correctly points out, the final language was arrived at via negotiations with the Treasury Department and through conference. One Senator didn't surreptitiously sneak into the Congress at night with a big bottle of White-Out and hijack Democracy. That's absurd.
Will: One Senator didn't surreptitiously sneak into the Congress at night with a big bottle of White-Out and hijack Democracy. That's absurd.
That IS absurd... That you think you can just say that's what I meant. Lobbyists for the industry, The WH, the Treasury, and members of the conference committee rewrote the legislation. Not one senator.
And because I don't have "evidence" (other then the fact that it was Republicans voting against the budget of a Democratic president) that means I'm ASSuming and you're totally right? Give me a break.
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