9 things Bernie Sanders should’ve known about but didn’t in that Daily News interview

[riversedge]

9 things Bernie Sanders should’ve known about but didn’t in that Daily News interview

https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-partisan/wp/2016/04/05/9-things-bernie-sanders-shouldve-known-about-but-didnt-in-that-daily-news-interview/?tid=ss_tw

April 5 at 12:23 PM



This post was updated at 1:30 p.m. to note the correct date of the interview.

My former colleagues on the New York Daily News editorial board sat down with Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) on April 1 for an illuminating interview. The more I read the transcript, the more it became clear that the candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination doesn’t know much beyond his standard stump speech about breaking up the banks and how he had the good judgment to vote against the Iraq War in 2002.

[Here’s why a Bernie Sanders victory for the nomination would make him a hypocrite]

Nine moments in the Sanders conversation left me agape. From his own plans for breaking up too-big-to-fail banks to how he would handle the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to dealing with the Islamic State, the man giving homegirl Hillary Clinton a run for her money seemed surprisingly out of his depth. The bold in the text is mine for emphasis.

1. Breaking up the banks

Daily News: Okay. Well, let’s assume that you’re correct on that point. How do you go about doing [breaking up the banks]?

Sanders: How you go about doing it is having legislation passed, or giving the authority to the secretary of treasury to determine, under Dodd-Frank, that these banks are a danger to the economy over the problem of too-big-to-fail.

Daily News: But do you think that the Fed, now, has that authority?

Sanders: Well, I don’t know if the Fed has it. But I think the administration can have it.

Daily News: How? How does a President turn to JPMorgan Chase, or have the Treasury turn to any of those banks and say, “Now you must do X, Y and Z?”

Sanders: Well, you do have authority under the Dodd-Frank legislation to do that, make that determination.

Daily News: You do, just by Federal Reserve fiat, you do?

Sanders: Yeah. Well, I believe you do.

2. The legal implications of breaking up a financial institution

Daily News: Well, it does depend on how you do it, I believe. And, I’m a little bit confused because just a few minutes ago you said the U.S. President would have authority to order…

Sanders: No, I did not say we would order. I did not say that we would order. The President is not a dictator.

Daily News: Okay. You would then leave it to JPMorgan Chase or the others to figure out how to break it, themselves up. I’m not quite…

Sanders: You would determine is that, if a bank is too big to fail, it is too big to exist. And then you have the secretary of treasury and some people who know a lot about this, making that determination. If the determination is that Goldman Sachs or JPMorgan Chase is too big to fail, yes, they will be broken up.

Daily News: Okay. You saw, I guess, what happened with Metropolitan Life. There was an attempt to bring them under the financial regulatory scheme, and the court said no. And what does that presage for your program?

Sanders: It’s something I have not studied, honestly, the legal implications of that....................

[Csainvestor]

1. Typical garbage reporting, Here is the New York Times rebuttal.

Breaking up the banks would involve arcane and complex regulatory moves that can trip up any banking policy wonk, let alone a presidential candidate. But, taken as a whole, Mr. Sanders’s answers seem to make sense. Crucially, his answers mostly track with a reasonably straightforward breakup plan that he introduced to Congress last year.

Here are the most relevant parts of the exchange.

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2016/04/07/upshot/yes-bernie-sanders-knows-something-about-breaking-up-banks.html?smid=tw-upshotnyt&smtyp=cur&referer&_r=0

[Jackie Wilson Said]

2. Still, would rather have someone saying this needs to be done than someone saying

they will "tell them to cut it out".

And I am not picking on Hillary when I say that, I will support her if necessary, I just think there is a difference here.

[Jefferson23]

3. Yes, Bernie Sanders Knows Something About Breaking Up Banks (NYT

So, Mark Halperin deems Bernie's answers in the Daily News "inadequate". Maybe he needs to ask Clinton for her particulars. Or would those be found in one of her $225,000 speeches?

Bernie has gotten specific about what he would do. He introduced legislation on breaking up the big banks, for one thing. Slate magazine reviewed his position. That was last year.

The New York Times, interestingly, has this to counter that hit piece:

Yes, Bernie Sanders Knows Something About Breaking Up Banks

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/07/upshot/yes-bernie-sanders-knows-something-about-breaking-up-banks.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

Regarding Hillary, same author:

The Washington Post's Chris Cillizza is stupid. Or a moron.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/10/7/1428927/-The-Washington-Post-s-Chris-Cillizza-is-stupid-Or-a-moron

[Armstead]

4. Clinton doesn't give a rats ass about financial reform. I prefer someone who does

[Cha]

5. Thanks rivers!

[Bluenorthwest]

6. Things Hillary should have known but didn't so she just made up some bullshit:

" It may be hard for your viewers to remember how difficult it was for people to talk about HIV/AIDS back in the 1980s and because of both president and Mrs. Reagan — in particular Mrs. Reagan — we started a national conversation, when before nobody would talk about it, nobody wanted to do anything about it, and that too is something I really appreciate with her very effective low-key advocacy. It penetrated the public conscience and people began to say, hey, we have to do something about this too."

[AzDar]

7. They've trotted out Uber-Shill Jonathan Capehart... Did he ever apologize for his Bernie photo lies?

[SidDithers]

8. DU rec...nt

Sid

[-none]

9. What does Hillary think about breaking up the banks?

Or does she think allowing gambling with depositor's money and predator lending just fine, with the profits going overseas and the losses being reimbursed by the tax payer?

[riversedge]

10. K and R