10 years ago today, Molly Ivins said…

[sonias]

ACJ.com 9/23/08
10 years ago today, Molly Ivins said….

By Jay Bookman | Tuesday, September 23, 2008, 11:48 AM
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

I’ve been watching Henry Paulson and Ben Bernanke testify about the proposed $700 billion bailout before the Senate Banking Committee. Paulson has been pretty candid that without this assistance, the financial system is likely to collapse, and he concedes that there are no guarantees even if it does become law.

Given all that, I thought I’d post large excerpts of a column by the late Molly Ivins, which the AJC published 10 years ago to the day — Sept. 23, 1998. Her subject was a proposal to deregulate the banking industry.

(snip of Molly's column):
"Not since Congress passed the Garn-St. Germain bill in 1981 - the one that deregulated the S&Ls and unleashed a half-a-trillion-dollar disaster, which the taxpayers of this country wound up paying for - has there been a move to match this for pure folly.

In addition, Sen. Phil Gramm of Texas is on a jihad against the Community Reinvestment Act, which is designed to make more loans available to low-income borrowers. He’s trying to strip those provisions out of the bill.

Now, see if you can follow this bouncing ball of news, because it’s a triple carom shot that sets up the aforementioned financial nightmare.

According to a report released Friday by federal banking regulators, banks are lowering commercial lending standards, even though the risk that business borrowers will default on a loan is rising.

I miss Molly - she was so right about this even back in 98!

Sonia