Why would Clinton repeal Glass-Steagall on the heels of the S&L Crisis

[FreakinDJ]

The S&L Crisis / Bailout was still fresh on the minds of Americans when Bill Clinton ran ion 1992

President Clinton's tenure was characterized by economic prosperity and financial deregulation, which in many ways set the stage for the excesses of recent years. Among his biggest strokes of free-wheeling capitalism was the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, which repealed the Glass-Steagall Act, a cornerstone of Depression-era regulation. He also signed the Commodity Futures Modernization Act, which exempted credit-default swaps from regulation. In 1995 Clinton loosened housing rules by rewriting the Community Reinvestment Act, which put added pressure on banks to lend in low-income neighborhoods. It is the subject of heated political and scholarly debate whether any of these moves are to blame for our troubles, but they certainly played a role in creating a permissive lending environment.


http://content.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1877351_1877350_1877322,00.html

All this after he chided Poppy Bush over the S&L Bail Out

Once again, the situation is hardly being discussed. And when it does come up the candidates tend toward demagoguery. For example, Mr. Clinton and Mr. Perot have both accused the President of willingly spending billions on the savings and loan bailout while refusing to spend money on other problems.


The next administration will be confronted early on with the need to seek tens of billions of dollars of new taxpayer money to continue the savings and loan bailout. In addition, a new law that takes effect in December will require Government regulators to seize many troubled banks at a time when the bank insurance fund is already $5.5 billion in the red. The Office of Management and Budget has predicted that the insurance fund could face losses as high as $72 billion through 1995. The Bailout Continues

Both Mr. Bush and Mr. Clinton have talked vaguely of the need to relax regulations over the banks to encourage more lending and stimulate the economy. But neither man has forthrightly said that the savings and loan bailout is still far from over, and that it may require $80 billion more to be completed.


http://www.nytimes.com/1992/10/27/us/1992-campaign-issues-unanswered-questions-bush-clinton-perot-demonstrate-let.html?pagewanted=all

So for Bill Clinton - obviously the answer to the S&L Bail Out was yet more Banking Deregulation

Sure. The savings and loan debacle was one-seventieth the size of the current crisis, both in terms of losses and the amount of fraud. In that crisis, the savings and loan regulators made over 30,000 criminal referrals, and this produced over 1,000 felony convictions in cases designated as “major” by the Department of Justice. But even that understates the degree of prioritization, because we, the regulators, worked very closely with the FBI and the Justice Department to create a list of the top 100 — the 100 worst fraud schemes. They involved roughly 300 savings and loans and 600 individuals, and virtually all of those people were prosecuted. We had a 90 percent conviction rate, which is the greatest success against elite white-collar crime (in terms of prosecution) in history.


http://billmoyers.com/2013/09/17/hundreds-of-wall-street-execs-went-to-prison-during-the-last-fraud-fueled-bank-crisis/

Hillary Clinton, Jeb Bush and the big banks


http://assets.nydailynews.com/polopoly_fs/1.2207138.1430510900!/img/httpImage/image.jpg_gen/derivatives/article_635/nov-29-00-00.jpg


When Bill Clinton was governor of Arkansas, a Goldman Sachs connection helped land him the White House. Ken Brody, a Goldman executive, took him to dinner with high-powered Wall Street types in early 1992, at the onset of Clinton's presidential campaign. Former Goldman co-CEO, Robert Rubin, provided Clinton early legitimacy in the banking community. Clinton made him Treasury Secretary.

Under Bill Clinton’s administration, two acts provided big banks further federal influence. First, the 1994 Reigle-Neal Act allowed mergers across state lines. Instrumental in pushing that act was former Bank of America CEO, Hugh McColl Jr. who first met Hillary Clinton in 1992. (In 2008, he contributed to Hillary’s presidential run, before endorsing Obama.)


Hillary Clinton was no bystander during Bill Clinton’s term (or Obama’s, which was just as friendly to Wall Street, with some anti-fat-cat rhetoric thrown in). Upon leaving Washington, she was paid $200,000 per speech at Goldman Sachs gatherings, notwithstanding government support for the firm while she was secretary of state.

The Clinton Foundation received donations of $500,000 to $1 million from Wall Street firms including Citigroup and Goldman Sachs, as well as $250,000 to $5 million donations from foundations and funds associated with Citigroup, Bank of America and Goldman Sachs.



http://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/nomi-prins-hillary-clinton-jeb-bush-big-banks-article-1.2207139

Integrity Matters ....

[Skwmom]

1. It is mind-boggling that anyone would think these two should EVER be put back in charge of our govt.

The damage they have done is still being felt.

[FreakinDJ]

4. Both Bill and Hillary's campaigns were financed by BIG Banks

[Faux pas]

2. Kickin'

[Cheese Sandwich]

3. Just trying to facilitate a corporate power grab that's all.

[EndElectoral]

5. Wow...excellent and informative post.

[Else You Are Mad]

6. Simply put:

Clinton's banker friends asked him nicely & the bankers repaid Clinton afterwards with large donations to his foundation after he left office.

[FreakinDJ]

9. Actually B of A was a major contributor of his 1992 campaign

[Else You Are Mad]

11. That too. nt

[samrock]

7. Uh you are aware that the repeal passed both the house and the senate

with veto proof majorities??

[FreakinDJ]

12. I also understand Bill Clinton advocated further De-regulating the Banking Industry

He not only signed it - it was part of his economic agenda

[Martin Eden]

13. If true, how does that exonerate those who voted for it or Clinton for signing it?

If the R's had veto-proof majorities and passed legislation to privatize Social Security, would you support a Democratic president who signed it instead of using his veto and all his powers of persuasion and the bully pulpit to rally the public against it?

If it's bad legislation with dire consequences, then it's bad legislation with dire consequences.

I would expect any elected representative (including the president) to represent the interests of the American people by opposing it.

Those who fail to oppose it should be voted out of office.

Or, do you think they should still get your vote?

[Snarkoleptic]

15. Being a corporatist, Clinton gave them political cover with his comments leading up to the vote.

At the bill signing, he went on to say “It is true that the Glass-Steagall law is no longer appropriate to the economy in which we lived. It worked pretty well for the industrial economy, which was highly organized, much more centralized and much more nationalized than the one in which we operate today. But the world is very different.”

Here's Hillary defending the repeal-

Here's Bill admitting it was a mistake (skip to 0:40 in the vid)-

[Carolina]

8. K&R

Excellent post! I will borrow this information to convince some friends that the Clintons should be retired rather than returned to power.

Sadly, I have friends who blindly (unthinkingly) support HRC because they want to see the glass ceiling broken, see a female POTUS before they die. I have tried mightily to point out the many ways $hillary is not the right woman, but your info is GREAT!

[Snarkoleptic]

10. He who pays the piper calls the tune, so the corporatocracy gets what it wants.

When an insider like Sandy Weill wants Clinton's damage undone, you know it's bad...

This resonates with me as back in the early 90's, I worked for a financial services firm that would soon be acquired by Citi.
I never worked for Citi, but they were in a manic expansion mode and I left three companies just prior to their acquisition by Citi.

Primerica is a monster created by the "Financial Services Modernization Act".
Back in the day, there was a shitbird insurance company called "A.L. Williams", which (allegedly) used 'twisting' as it's primary business practice. Twisting was the comparison of permanent whole-life policies with cheaper (non-permanent) term policies. The gist was "convert to term and invest the savings in monthly premiums". Trouble is that clients tended to not invest the savings as they were lower income folks who lacked sophistication. As these folks aged, the term coverage became prohibitively expensive and was often dropped. No life insurance and no savings nut from investing the spread.

A.L. Williams had such a shitty reputation that Citi, with the help of Phil Gramm and his Financial Services Modernization Act, also purchased Travelers Insurance and swept A.L. Willaims under the umbrella (see what I did there? Travelers logo was a red umbrella). Insiders viewed this as a cynical way of continuing questionable business practices, but with a shiny new (and fairly untarnished) name hanging over the door.

Primerica was the company that, as a subsidiary of Citi, held this shabby new outfit and Sandy Weil (formerly of American Express), ran this thing with the help of a new up-and-comer by the name of Jamie Dimon. Yep, the same Jamie Dimon who went on to head up Chase Bank, which also has a laundry list of fines and allegations in it's shadow.

Long story short, deregulation brought us a whole lot of corporation predation.
This is the story as I remember it, so the details may be a bit fuzzy as it was around 25-years ago.

[BernieforPres2016]

14. There is plenty to go after Reagan and Bush Sr. for

But at least there were hundreds of S&L executives prosecuted and convicted after the S&L scandal of the 80's. A very famous one was Charles Keating of the "Keating 5" senators who tried to intervene on his behalf (including John McCain); he was convicted and sent to prison. Imagine that happening today.

There was not even a real attempt at prosecuting anybody after the 2008 financial meltdown which was exponentially more damaging and involved criminal behavior from many more parties.

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2011/04/14/business/20110414-prosecute.html?_r=0

[FreakinDJ]

16. Actually Bankster prosecutions Peaked during Clinton Administration

So while at the same time Prosecutions of Bankers for complicity in the S&L failures - Bill Clinton advocated for and signed major Banking Deregulation





What the chart really shows is prosecutions have gone down as a result of Deregulation


The Clintons can say Wall St Bank's campaign contributions will have no effect on their decisions - but history shows a very different reality

[BernieforPres2016]

17. Deregulating should not equate to decriminalizing

The Savings & Loan era fraud was straight theft, giving sweetheart loans to buddies and Board members who had no hope of ever repaying them, etc. Those were relatively easy cases for prosecutors and juries. Financial fraud in the 2000's is more sophisticated and requires more of prosecutors and juries because they get into futures and options pricing, probabilities, how mortgage backed securities are made, etc. The Justice Department under GWB and Obama seems to pretty much have thrown its hands up and gone to the strategy of collecting large fines. Until some prominent executives do prison time, nothing is going to change.

[FreakinDJ]

18. Yet they throw our Tax Dollars into jeopardy with their casino

[BernieforPres2016]

19. And they tell us that their casino is so complex that only they are smart enough to regulate it

Which is why we have the revolving door between Wall Street and the Treasury Department.

We could easily do without 90% of the bullshit derivatives products Wall Street pushes for its own benefit.

[Wilms]

20. ^

[Vinca]

21. On the surface, the Clinton presidency seemed productive.

In retrospect, he signed GOP bills because he was pretty much being held hostage and wanted to get something . . . anything . . . done. At least I hope that's the case. I hope he and Newt weren't on the same page on all those disastrous bills. As it turns out, legislation enacted during that period has pretty much caused many of the big problems we have today. Even the 1990's economic boom was a sham that is now described as "just another bubble." I look forward to another Clinton presidency in the same way I looked forward to another Bush presidency.

[FreakinDJ]

22. This video makes it seem like Clinton was not being held hostage

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And the 1994 Republican Revolution was a direct result of the Clintons moving the Democratic party to the Right