Brain
Posts: 3792
Joined: 2/14/2007 Status: offline
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Five co-sponsors want to restore the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933 and I think Obama and other Democrats who oppose it need to be confronted. Why? When this Act was amended it set in place the conditions which allowed the financial crisis to occur. It's not acceptable for the Obama administration to prevent its restoration. Whether it's a bad economy or a good economy, the banks always make money because they own politicians like Obama, Chris Dodd, Joe Biden, Lieberman and the entire Republican Party. The congressmen, five House Democrats, want change and Obama was elected to get results/change but Wall Street owns him and much of the Democratic Party; unfortunately Republicans are worse. John Conyers is right without Glass-Steagall another financial collapse is likely to recur. Congressmen To Call For Break-Up Of Biggest Banks Five House Democrats will call this week for a return to a Depression-era law that separated Wall Street investment banking from Main Street commercial banking. If adopted, the measure would give banks one year to choose between being commercial banks or investment banks. The nation's biggest -- those now commonly referred to as "too big to fail" -- would be broken up. The Obama administration opposes the measure. In a Nov. 17 opinion piece in the Detroit Free Press, Conyers wrote: Without Glass-Steagall serving as a critical check on the power of banks, the floodgates of speculation were opened. The banks leveraged personal savings accounts to trade in exotic securities and assets. Banks, insurance companies, and investment firms merged at an astounding pace. No longer content to simply finance home mortgages, these new hybrids began creating and selling securities based off of the speculative value of shaky mortgages. The banks took on more risk because risk was profitable. No one paid much attention to what would happen when the speculation bubble burst. Conyers also argues that the administration is taking the wrong approach. Currently, the Obama administration is working with both houses of Congress on legislation aimed at preventing a...major calamity in the banking industry. I am concerned, however, that their preferred method seems to focus on empowering our financial regulators to manage and mitigate some level of "acceptable risk" within the present system, instead of correcting the structural flaws that make a collapse likely to recur. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/12/07/congressmen-to-call-for-b_n_383128.html
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