Our best friends as i turns out are Japan, China, the Cayman Islands, and the United Kingdom. Who would have thought the Cayman Islands would have been nearly so friendly.? We should be eating more sushi and conch!
Piezoe... you comments are like a trip to fascist propaganda school. You attempt to rewrite everything about leftist / dem policies and act like the most corrupt ones passed due to trickery. it would be mildly entertaining if it were not so deceitful. It makes me question my own position on global warming. 1. Clinton's top advisor Rubin and others were pushing for the repeal of Glass Steagall. Gramm did not fool Clinton... he gave him he gave him cover. http://thestrangedeathofliberalamer...t-two-of-an-indepth-investigative-report.html In the background of the go-go economy, the feeling grew among some economists and the financial community that Glass-Steagall hampered America’s financial competitiveness. Among the many voices favoring this was Alan Greenspan along with former Goldman Sachs partner Robert Rubin, Bill Clinton’s Treasury Secretary. In a 1995 speech and testimony to Congress Rubin signaled the Clinton Administration was ready to repeal Glass-Steagall: “The banking industry is fundamentally different from what it was two decades ago, let alone in 1933.” He said the industry has been transformed into a global business of facilitating capital formation through diverse new products, services and markets. “U.S. banks generally engage in a broader range of securities activities abroad than is permitted domestically,” said the Treasury secretary. “Even domestically, the separation of investment banking and commercial banking envisioned by Glass-Steagall has eroded significantly.” Anyone who thinks the repeal of Glass-Steagall was forced on an unwilling Bill Clinton need only read Rubin’s testimony. A year later Sandy Weill set in motion the forces that would finally end Glass-Steagall. Weill proposed the most audacious financial merger in American history: he would merge one of the largest insurance companies (Travelers), one of the largest investment banks (Salomon Smith Barney), and the largest commercial banks (Citibank) in America. The problem was the merger was illegal in terms of Glass-Steagall. Independent Community Bankers of America CEO Kenneth Guenther captured the audacity of the deal inan interview with Frontline: Here you have the leadership — Sandy Weill of Travelers and John Reed of Citicorp — saying, “Look, the Congress isn’t moving fast enough. Let’s do it on our own. To heck with the Congress. Let us effect this.” And so they move towards effecting it, and they get the blessing of the chairman of the Federal Reserve system in early April, when legislation is pending. I mean, this is hubris in the worst sense of the word. Who do they think they are? Other people, firms, cannot act like this. … Citicorp and Travelers were so big that they were able to pull this off. They were able to pull off the largest financial conglomeration — the largest financial coming together of banking, insurance, and securities — when legislation was still on the books saying this was illegal. And they pulled this off with the blessings of the president of the United States, President Clinton; the chairman of the Federal Reserve system, Alan Greenspan; and the secretary of the treasury, Robert Rubin. And then, when it’s all over, what happens? The secretary of the treasury becomes the vice chairman of the emerging Citigroup. Weill convinced Greenspan, Robert Rubin and Clinton to sign off on a merger that was illegal at the time, with the expectation that Congress would repeal Glass-Steagall. Charles Geisst, a professor of finance at Manhattan College adds in a Frontline Interview: Part of [Weill's] deal with the Federal Reserve was to get rid of all Glass-Steagall violations in the new Citigroup within two years. Otherwise, he would have been faced with a divestiture of a company which had just been put together, because of an old law which is still on the books. So it clearly behooved him, and many other people in the financial services industry who wanted to accomplish essentially the same sort of thing in the future, to push to get Glass-Steagall repealed. So they pushed hard? Pushed very hard. … They pushed so hard that the legislation, HR10, House Resolution 10, which became the Financial Services Modernization Act, was referred to as “the Citi-Travelers Act” on Capitol Hill. .. and there is a lot more on this issue about Rubin if you do the research.
Well, I didn't exactly say it was forced on Clinton, did I? I did say it was a must pass Bill. It was! And therefore it would be easier to get it through the Senate. I think I said, it's been awhile, that I'd like to ask Clinton some questions. That's right, Rubin was on board, and Greenspan was on board, god bless him. I also pointed out that Daschel correctly predicted the outcome. He certainly deserves credit for that. Virtually everything he said would happen, happened! Your characterization of everything except me is correct. Why don't you pick on those nasty Republicans, like Greenspan, Gramm, Rubin and Weill that brought us this Crap instead of an innocent little sweet guy like myself. l think I'm going to cry now. P.S. - in case you do not know, I believe Daschel is/was a democrat.
now... we are getting somewhere. I reserve no love or admiration for sellout establishment republicans as their betrayal in many ways hurts us even more then the leftists. and with respect to Bush... the guy who tried to put a stealth liberal on the Court like his Dad, who tried to sell our ports to Qatar, who looted America for Haliburton and cronies and sold us out to the drug companies with medicare part D.. I have also said while I think Michael Moore is a big rich hypocrite I have also given him credit for being correct about Bush and his loot the country for his cronies policies. Greenspan... That fraud allowed lending standards to be lowered during a housing bubbles and then acted like it was a mistake because his philosophy was wrong. He was not wrong... he was simply a spokesmodel for the private banks which own the Federal Reserve system. It was his job to get glass steagall removed. Greenspan did his job.