Robert Scheer: Bill Clinton’s Legacy of Denial

[ProSense]

Bill Clinton’s Legacy of Denial

By Robert Scheer

Does Bill Clinton still not grasp that the current economic crisis is in large measure his legacy? Obviously that’s the case, or he wouldn’t have had the temerity to write a 14-point memo for Newsweek on how to fix the economy that never once refers to the home mortgage collapse and other manifestations of Wall Street greed that he enabled as president.

Endorsing the Republican agenda of financial industry deregulation, reversing New Deal safeguards, President Clinton pursued policies that in the long run created more damage to the American economy than any other president since Herbert Hoover, whose tenure is linked to the Great Depression. Now, in his Newsweek piece, Clinton has the effrontery to once again revive his 1992 campaign mantra, “It’s the economy, stupid,” as the article’s title without any sense of irony, let alone accountability. But that has always been the man’s special gift—to rise above, and indeed benefit from, the messes he created.

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Conceding that the bailed-out banks are sitting on $2 trillion that they won’t lend, Clinton offers not a word about mortgage relief for swindled homeowners. With an all-time high of 44 million Americans living below the poverty line, Clinton once again brags of his success in ending the federal welfare program.

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Clinton signed off on the reversal of the Glass-Steagall Act, the legislative jewel of the Franklin Roosevelt administration designed to prevent financial institutions from getting too big to fail. In signing the Financial Services Modernization Act, which broke down the barrier between high-rolling Wall Street investment firms and consumer banks carrying the deposits of ordinary folk, Clinton gushed in 1999, “Over the (past) seven years we have tried to modernize the economy. … And today what we are doing is modernizing the financial services industry, tearing down those antiquated laws and granting banks significant new authority.”

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Even if the foundation for the mortgage crisis was laid during Clinton's Presidency, the crisis is all Bush's doing.

[Wilms]

1. I recommend your post but I can't understand the comment you posted at it's base.

Even if the foundation for the mortgage crisis was laid during Clinton's Presidency, the crisis is all Bush's doing.

Without Clinton's mis-steps I have little doubt Bush & Co would still have exacted a heavy toll on the middle class and poor. But how do you absolve Clinton's roll?

[ProSense]

3. Unlike

Bush, I don't think Clinton would have allowed the crisis to deepen without taking steps to reverse it. He definitely would have been more sensitive to the backlash. Bush's policies took advantage of deregulation and exploited every loophole to the detriment of the economy.

[Wilms]

5. OK. So we'd decend at a 45 degree angle instead of plummeting straight down.

It's a game. I ain't falling for it.

[ProSense]

6. Didn't say

it was a good thing. Deregulation has been a disaster.

[Dawson Leery]

7. Most likely, the regulators would have been allowed to do what regulators

are intended to do with Clinton. --> A little known fact: Early 2004: George Bush orders the treasury department to remove the bank lending leverage caps. At the time, the cap was 12:1, meaning that for every dollar the banks had in cash, they could lend $12. Without the cap, they lent out 30-40 times what they had in deposits.

Still, the financial reform bill passed last year did not go far enough and yes, the Glass Steagal Act must be re-instated.

[ProSense]

9. Regulators

follow regulations. When the regulations are scrapped, regulators are rendered ineffective.

[ClarkUSA]

2. Bookmarked. Bubba's pushing for Medicare cuts & asking Paul Ryan to call him completes the picture.

:puke:

Robert Scheer: Bill Clinton’s Legacy of Denial
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=439&topic_id=1351211&mesg_id=1351211

Funny how those who are always attacking President Obama from the left never have anything negative to say about Bill Clinton, a bonafide DINO through and through.

[ProSense]

4. No other comments?

Interesting!

[mmonk]

8. No, that's simplistic (last sentence).

It's Bill's fault, Gramm's fault, Bliley's fault, Leech's fault, Summers's fault, Greenspan's fault, Rubin's fault, Paulson's fault, etc. Yes, you can throw Bush II in there as well but the road to hell was paved.

[ProSense]

10. Well,

spread it around, but the piece is specifically about deregulation.

[mmonk]

11. Exactly. And these were those that made it possible.

That and the creation of all the CDO's as a result. The question is now, how do we reverse the trends and put the safeguards back in?

[mmonk]

12. I might add that the politicians still pretending regulations

are the problem isn't helping, particularly those with a Libertarian bent. It drives me crazy people can't see the reality in front of them. BTW, I recommended the post because it dealt with the real causes of the collapse.