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2016 Postmortem
Related: About this forumHRC's Record On Wall St. Belies Her Tough Talk---Says One Thing, Votes and Lobbies For the Wealthy
Hillary Clintons Mixed Record on Wall Street Belies Her Tough Cut it Out Talkby Jeff Gert ProPublica, Nov. 13, 2015, 6 a.m.
During the Democratic debate last month, Hillary Clinton assured viewers she would be a president at least as tough on Wall Street as her main opponent for the nomination, Sen. Bernie Sanders. She cited her history as a progressive who likes to gets things done. Sanders and others, she added, might be missing the forest for the trees by aiming at big banks alone and not the more risky shadow banking system.
Clinton also proudly recalled that while serving as U.S. senator from New York she warned bankers early in the financial crisis about their dangerous practices.
I went to Wall Street in December of 2007 before the big crash that we had, Clinton said. I basically said, Cut it out! Quit foreclosing on homes! Quit engaging in these kinds of speculative behaviors. "
An examination of her remarks to Wall Street in December 2007 and Clintons actions as a senator a period when she had the best opportunity to translate her words into deeds presents a more mixed picture of her record on the banking industry.
Clinton steered a middle ground in a 28-minute address to business executives gathered at an office of the Nasdaq stock exchange in New Yorks Times Square on Dec. 5, 2007. In the event, she presented a detailed analysis of the burgeoning dangers in the housing market and its threat to the economy.
Clinton gave a shout-out to her wonderful donors in the audience, and asked the bankers to voluntarily suspend foreclosures and freeze interest rates on adjustable subprime mortgages. She praised Wall Street for its role in creating the nations wealth, then added that too many American families are not sharing in that prosperity.
She said the brewing economic troubles werent mainly the fault of banks, not by a long shot, but added they needed to shoulder responsibility for their role. While there was plenty of blame to go around for the spate of reckless lending, and while Wall Street may not have created the foreclosure crisis, it certainly had a hand in making it worse and needs to help us solve it.
Finally, Clinton said, if the banks didnt take the voluntary steps she proposed, I will consider legislation to address the problem.
The lenders did not adopt Clintons proposals. During 2007 and 2008, when the housing market collapsed and while she was also running for president, the Democrats controlled the Senate. Of the 140 bills Clinton introduced during that period, five were related to housing finance or foreclosures, according to congressional records. Only one of those five secured any co-sponsors. No Senate committee took action on any of them and they died without any further discussion.
When a broad housing bill finally became law in 2008, Clinton was not among the more than dozen senators credited by party leaders as playing a key role.
snip
Clinton in 2007 publicly decried a tax break for hedge-fund and private-equity executives and continues to do so in her current campaign. But she didnt sign on as a supporter of a Senate bill that would have curbed the break.
As a senator, Clinton also had a brush with the shadow-banking world that she now describes as a continuing threat to the financial system. When AIG, the giant insurance company and poster child for lightly regulated finance, began to implode in September 2008, Clinton reached out to Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, who was involved in talks to rescue the firm with government funds.
Her little-noticed overture came on behalf of some wealthy investors who stood to lose millions and had hired two longtime associates of the Clintons to represent them.
snip
During the debate she had called for stronger regulatory oversight of the financial system and addressed the theme of income inequality that has powered the campaign of Sanders, who identifies himself a democratic socialist. Its our job to rein in the excesses of capitalism so it doesnt run amok and doesnt cause the kind of inequities that were seeing in our economic system, she said.
Clintons campaign referenced her Senate record in the fact sheet issued a few days before the debate titled, Wall Street Should Work for Main Street. It cited one bill the executive compensation legislation that died. It also mentioned four press releases or speeches from 2007 and 2008 including a March 15, 2007, talk in which she proposed a series of housing initiatives and her call later that year for higher taxes on hedge fund executives.
Clinton had already hit the tax break in her new campaign. In April, during her first official appearance as a presidential candidate, she told students in a classroom for auto technology at an Iowa community college: Theres something wrong when hedge fund managers pay lower taxes than the nurses or the truckers that I saw on I-80 as I was driving here.
Her aides then told reporters she was referring to the so-called carried-interest loophole, which taxes compensation earned by private equity partners and hedge fund managers at a lower rate than ordinary earned income.
What they didnt say was that Clinton never signed onto the bipartisan June 2007 bill that would have curbed the break.
Her rival for the nomination, then-Sen. Barack Obama, became a co-sponsor on July 12.
The next day Clinton gave a campaign speech criticizing the tax provision. Yet she still didnt put her name to the legislation, according to records.
During Clintons first presidential campaign, her official campaign website gave short shrift to financial or housing matters. In April 2008, the section of the website called Hillary on the Issues listed 14 topics; none involved housing, mortgages or Wall Street.
snip
Meanwhile the Senate moved forward on other bills with wider support. They eventually led to a sweeping housing and mortgage law signed by President Bush in July 2008. ......
The bills main sponsor, Sen. Christopher Dodd, a Connecticut Democrat, summarized the bills journey and, in a floor speech, praised 13 other Senators for their help. Clintons name wasnt among them.
Closed Door Meetings
At the debate last month, Clinton said her campaign plan for Wall Street oversight was tougher than the one proposed by Sanders, in part because it would go beyond making sure banks arent too big to fail. We also have to worry about some of the other players AIG, a big insurance company; Lehman Brothers, an investment bank. Theres this whole area called shadow banking. Thats where the experts tell me the next potential problem could come from, she said.
Clinton didnt need an expert to tell her about AIG.
On Sept. 18, 2008, as the government grappled with collapsing markets, Clinton took to the Senate floor. After years of laissez-faire policies for the middle class, the Bush administration has acted on behalf of Wall Street, with the largest and most significant Federal interventions in the history of our modern financial system, she said. The largest banks in the world could have closed-door meetings with the White House and the Federal Reserve and Treasury Department to discuss their bailout options, but millions of homeowners with mortgages worth more than their homes, or who are facing default and foreclosure, dont have the same opportunity.
A day before that speech, Clinton had quietly reached out to Paulson, Bushs Treasury secretary, on behalf of some wealthy investors in AIG.
The giant insurer had made bad bets on the mortgage market, couldnt pay its debts and faced imminent collapse. Shareholders were poised to lose billions if the company went bankrupt or was taken over by the government.
A review of Paulsons calendars shows that he and Clinton talked on Sept. 17 and 20. In his book about the financial crisis, Paulson mentions just the first conversation, saying that Clinton called on behalf of Mickey Kantor, a lawyer, who represented a group interested in staving off AIGs imminent collapse. The groups investment banker, according to news accounts at the time, was Roger Altman. Kantor and Altman are long-time friends of Hillary Clinton and served as senior officials in her husbands administration. Altman headed a secret energy task force for Clinton when she was in the Senate.
In Paulsons account of his conversation with Clinton, Kantor represented a group of Middle East investors who were considering a bid for the insurer.
snip
https://www.propublica.org/article/hillary-clinton-mixed-record-on-wall-street-tough-cut-it-out-talk
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HRC's Record On Wall St. Belies Her Tough Talk---Says One Thing, Votes and Lobbies For the Wealthy (Original Post)
amborin
Apr 2016
OP
When Clinton became a senator I thought she would be like Elizabeth Warren is now.
hollowdweller
Apr 2016
#2
I know this sounds crazy, but it's almost as if she cares more about rich people than the rest of us
CentralCoaster
Apr 2016
#4
Uncle Joe
(58,365 posts)1. Kicked and recommended.
Thanks for the thread, amborin.
hollowdweller
(4,229 posts)2. When Clinton became a senator I thought she would be like Elizabeth Warren is now.
Turned out as a senator she was more like she was as SOS. Not a lot changed.
I do like that she at least did lecture the banks and proposed some legislation even though she didn't push it too hard.
beedle
(1,235 posts)3. OMG - Hillary was all "say one thing, and do the other".
Who'd a thunk?
CentralCoaster
(1,163 posts)4. I know this sounds crazy, but it's almost as if she cares more about rich people than the rest of us
But that can't be right, she's running as a Democrat!
2cannan
(344 posts)5. How sleazy...
"Her little-noticed overture came on behalf of some wealthy investors who stood to lose millions and had hired two longtime associates of the Clintons to represent them."
amborin
(16,631 posts)6. she says she's for ordinary Americans, but her actions show she's for wealthy investors' interests
amborin
(16,631 posts)7. these are some examples of how HRC is influenced
Katashi_itto
(10,175 posts)8. k&R!!! Down with the Vichy Dems