Just how dishonest is Clinton attack on Sanders re: Commodity Futures Modernization Act?
In June 2013, film producer Charles Ferguson interviewed Bill Clinton who said he and Larry Summers couldn't change Alan Greenspan's mind and Congress then passed the Act with a veto-proof supermajority. Ferguson revealed that this was inaccurate and, he said, a lie, while commenting that he thought Clinton was "a really good actor". In fact, Ferguson wrote, the Clinton Administration and Larry Summers lobbied for the Act and joined Robert Rubin in both privately and publicly attacking advocates of regulation.
Wait, what?
"In June, I attended a dinner for Bill Clinton, which was educational. Clinton spoke passionately about his foundation, about African wildlife, inequality, childhood obesity, and much else with enormous factual command, emotion, and rhetorical power. But he and I also spoke privately. I asked him about the financial crisis. He paused and then became even more soulful, thoughtful, passionate, and articulate. And then he proceeded to tell me the most amazing lies I've heard in quite a while.
For example, Mr. Clinton sorrowfully lamented his inability to stop the Commodity Futures Modernization Act, which banned all regulation of private (OTC) derivatives trading, and thereby greatly worsened the crisis. Mr. Clinton said that he and Larry Summers had argued with Alan Greenspan, but couldn't budge him, and then Congress passed the law by a veto-proof supermajority, tying his hands. Well, actually, the reason that the law passed by that overwhelming margin was because of the Clinton Administration's strong advocacy, including Congressional testimony by Larry Summers and harsh public and private attacks on advocates of regulation by Summers and Robert Rubin.
Wow, I thought, this guy is a really good actor. And I also saw one reason why Hillary Clinton might not be thrilled about my movie. I discovered others. In Arkansas, she joined the boards of Walmart and Tyson Foods. One of the largest donors to the Bill, Hillary, and Chelsea Clinton Foundation is the government of Saudi Arabia. The Clintons' personal net worth now probably exceeds $200 million, and while earned legally, both the money's sources and the Clintons' public statements indicate a strong aversion to rocking boats or making powerful enemies."
Charles Ferguson
Director, Wall Street documentary 'Inside Job'; Author, 'Predator Nation'
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/charles-ferguson/hillary-clinton-documentary_b_4014792.html
"The CFMA's chief architect was then-Sen. Phil Gramm (R-Texas), a die-hard deregulator who joined Swiss banking giant UBS after leaving the Senate. Today, he's essentially the rhetorical opposite of Sanders, appearing in congressional hearings to literally bemoan the low pay of multimillionaire CEOs.
By 2000, Sanders was already an unpopular figure with big banks. The prior year, he had vigorously opposed the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act, a Depression-era law which barred conventional banks from engaging in risky securities trading. Its repeal is widely viewed as fueling a merger binge that made companies massive and complex -- a catalyst for the banking collapse.
In a speech on the House floor, then-Rep. Sanders hammered the repeal bill for creating new "taxpayer exposure to potential losses should a financial conglomerate fail."
"It will lead to more megamergers, a small number of corporations dominating the financial service industry and further concentration of economic power in this country," Sanders added.
Yet a year later, Sanders voted in favor of legislation to exempt whole swaths of the banking sector from regulation. The discrepancy appears to be due in part to sloppy voting by Sanders, and in part to Gramm's legislative guile.
"No one has a stronger record on reforming Wall Street and breaking up too-big-to-fail banks than Senator Sanders," said Warren Gunnels, senior policy adviser to Sanders. "He strongly spoke against repealing Glass-Steagall because he was afraid that it could cause a financial crisis like the one we saw in 2008. And he's going to do everything possible to break up the too-big-to-fail banks."
When Sanders voted for the House version of the CFMA in October 2000, the bill was not yet a total debacle for Wall Street accountability advocates. The legislative text Sanders supported was clearly designed to curtail regulatory oversight. The GOP-authored bill was crafted as a response to a proposal from ex-Commodity Futures Trading Commission Chair Brooksley Born to ramp up oversight of derivatives. But the version Sanders initially voted for was more benign than the final, Gramm-authored version, and it didn't draw any of the protests that the 1999 repeal of Glass-Steagall did. In October 2000, the bill passed the House by a vote of 377 to 4 (51 members didn't vote), and then sat on the shelf for weeks.
But in December, Gramm -- after coordinating with top Clinton administration officials -- added much harder-edged deregulatory language to the bill, then attached the entire package to a must-pass 11,000-page bill funding the entire federal government. After Gramm's workshopping, the legislation included new language saying the federal government "shall not exercise regulatory authority with respect to, a covered swap agreement offered, entered into, or provided by a bank." That ended all government oversight of derivatives purchased or traded by banks. He also created the so-called "Enron Loophole," which barred federal oversight of energy trading on electronic platforms.
This was an era in which voting against funding the federal government was considered a major governance faux pas. The bill sailed through both chambers of Congress, with few lawmakers even aware of the major new deregulatory changes."
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/bernie-sanders-wall-street_5617f634e4b0dbb8000e5a58
= new reply since forum marked as read
"Look at the dummy who didn't stand up to Bill Clinton's terrible de-regulation policies well enough"
... is Hillary Clinton's argument?
So the conclusion is to be that Hillary Clinton's opponent cannot be trusted to oppose her husband Bill Clinton's terribly ill-advised trust of the financial and banking industries as well as she will?
I'd like to see her explore her contempt for the Clinton administration's wildly dangerous de-regulatory policies further.
Much further.
Please proceed, Ms. Clinton.
