Can you tell me how you understand the repeal and that part of history in general? I was a baby when Billy boy was slinging dick in the white house, I only knew him as the guy I wrote letters to from time to time.the repeal of Glass-Steagall.
Yeah. So bonds are loans, right? War bonds are money you loan the government so they can beat the Germans and they'll pay you back. Savings bonds are money you loan the government so they can do whatever and they'll pay you back. A municipal bond is money loaned to some city or whoever and they'll pay it back. Really, the difference is a loan is between a bank and a customer while a bond is between an organization and anybody who is qualified to buy the bond. So if I need a car loan, I go to a bank. They look at my credit history, decide how risky I am and offer me terms. I can shop for other banks, who might give me other terms. No matter what, the bank is out the money if i don't pay. They can recoup the car but they're not going to get full price. But if I need a car company I also go to a bank. They talk to their friends, grease the wheels, put together terms, arrange for me to meet with investors and basically put together a deal whereby I get a bond (big pile of money) that investors buy. No matter what, the bank makes money off the top. They lose nothing. All they're doing is skimming off the top. All the risk is with the people buying the bonds. I could be Henry Ford, I could be John DeLorean, I could be Liz Carmichael. The bank makes money, and really faces no legal consequences for "oopsie! introduced you to a scam artist! Too bad, so sad!" As you might imagine, the bank that has your savings account and offers you mortgages operates under very different principles than the bank that writes AT1 convertibles. You've got George Bailey and his savings and loan on the one hand; on the other you've literally got Goldman Sachs. One pools its customers' money and uses it to facilitate the financial transactions of its customers. The other buys bonds, sling moneys around and otherwise attempts to multiply it through fornication. So as the country was picking up the pieces of the Great Depression, one of the fingers pointed was that banks were taking everyone's money and playing the ponies with it. They weren't protecting the savings of their clients, they were buying stocks on margin - in other words, using clients' money for risks the clients didn't authorize. Which is one thing if you're an investor at an investment bank. Quite another if you're a customer at a thrift. So Congress said no more and made it so that if you protect people's money for a living, you can't use it to play the ponies. Graham Leach Blihley blew that shit the fuck and gone out of the water. More than that, the FDIC had been watching over thrifts and the SEC had been watching over investment banks. But thrifts that decided to play the ponies weren't under the purvey of the SEC and the FDIC has no mechanism to determine wither thrifts were playing the ponies in a safe and legal fashion. So while you might think that taking everyone's mortgages, rolling them up into bonds and paying the biggest yields on the ones most likely to fail is counterintuitive and stupid and fuckin' hell nobody should do that, there was no sanctioning body whose job it was to say "hey Washington Mutual stop writing mortgages you expect to fail so that you can get higher yields on the bonds you roll them up in." TL;DR: Glass Steagall separated banks that serve consumers and banks that facilitate investment and regulated them separately. Repealing it gave banks a lot of leeway with customers' money and made no provisions for regulating their behavior. Everything went as expected.
It's not fair to blame Graham Leach Bliley on Clinton. He's a globalist but two years into his first term we had the Contract with America which meant a solid fucking year of the government shutting down every now and then for days at a time. Make no mistake - he didn't go to the mattresses protecting the integrity of America's thrifts either but the MORE BIGGER BANKS NOW movement definitely came out of Gingrich's camp. Why? Fuckin' benjamins, yo.
So our reason for thinking that the Blue team will suddenly support putting Glass-Steagall - like protections in place is .... What exactly? Our reason for thinking that the Blue team will reign in the financier class is what exactly? I got lost somewhere along the way.
Did you just "get" me? Did I just "get got?" Here's the thing, Ben. Most of my Hubski participation for two days was given over to patiently answering your questions. You'll note I didn't rise to the bait of your "Billy boy" goads because I respect you and consider you capable of learning. After all, you plowed through a 25-book geopolitical list (that I also generated for your benefit, remember). And where does that leave us? You standing there, jumping up and down like a toddler that needs to pee, saying "GOTCHA! SIMPSONS DID IT SIMPSONS DID IT!" Have you ever looked at yourself in the mirror while you're sitting there gloating? 'cuz here's the sad thing, Ben. First of all, we're talking about a nineteen year old bill. Second of all, I already explained at length how it was primarily the work of the Gingrich congress. Third of all, the banking act instituted to repair some of the damage is named after two Democrats. And I know that every question you asked was a rhetorical form of "let me shit all over Democrats because I hate them more than Republicans." And I know that every answer I gave was one that you were blithely ignoring because you couldn't wait to say "SIMPSONS DID IT SIMPSONS DID IT" (three whole days - you're either busy or bored). And I know that in your head you're Lucy and the only thing you live for is pulling the fuckin' football before Charlie Brown can kick it. But the fact of the matter is, I'm answering your questions and you just look like a spoiled toddler. You're better than this, and I no longer have the time. So in the future, if you'd just kindly post a picture of Tucker Carlson instead of asking any questions you'll get to make your point ("I'm a spoiled toddler") and I won't waste my time trying to tell you stuff instead of hanging out with my wife, hanging out with my kid or working on my homework. Deal?
Not at all what I am trying to do. I'm trying to assemble a more internally consistent and less hopeless worldview. A part of that is the willingness to vote blue team and not completely hate myself for doing it. Im trying to understand how these two things can be reconciled. 1. The repeal of Glass-Steagall opened pandora's box of financial fuckery that likely will never be able to be closed. 2. A Democrat president with a Democratic majority in both house and Senate not only allowed it to happen but encouraged and supported it. And these are the people I am supposed to be giving my support to? You already know my opinion of lesser-evilism I am envious of your apparently clean political conscience. I am in pursuit of one for myself.Did you just "get" me? Did I just "get got?"
This is the lie you tell yourself. The insulting thing is that you think the rest of us are fooled. Not once, not twice but three times you've tried to swing this back to Clinton and his evil ways despite being told not once, not twice but three times that Clinton was tangentially involved at best, that it was a (famously and assiduously) Republican majority that repealed Glass Steagall. What's really stupid is if you were even any good at your Plague On Both Your Houses schtick, you'd fuckin' look up some of those links I sent your way and go but but but it passed 90-8 that proooves they're all eeeeeeeeeevillllllll but you don't even have the conviction of your own bullshit to pay lip service to the debate. Which really just makes you an asshole besides. Senate: 55R-45D. House: 227R-207D. Again, I've said this shit three times yet you sit there sputtering in your moral dudgeon and claim no really! "I'm trying to assemble a more internally consistent and less hopeless worldview." For once and for all, fuck off with that shit. EVERY conversation with you has become "I hear you have some thoughtful discourse... FOR ME TO POOP ON" and I'm fuckin' done.I'm trying to assemble a more internally consistent and less hopeless worldview.
You're saying that there is no positive case for voting Dem? That the only reason to vote Blue is because they aren't Red? The best part of all of this is that I decided months ago to just vote blue team basically across the board regardless because it's necessary for the elimination of small problems. It also makes me complicit when an all blue majority decides to make another big fucking bad decision like the Glass-Steagall repeal.
Sure there are positive reasons to vote for Democrats. They don't generally want to put children in cages, prevent anyone who isn't old and white from voting, inject the bible into medicine and education, deregulate all the things even when it is obviously and stupidly self-destructive, ..., but you know all that. The Democrats are inadequate, and it is horrible that they're the best viable option. But they're the best viable option. See about helping out Mutual Aid Disaster Relief or something if you really want to try to change that. But also vote Capitalist Shill over Foaming At The Mouth Barbarian every two years too, because it's not like it's hard and more of the same really is better than outright malice.