OK, so how much responsibility does "Foreclosure Phil" Gramm bear?

[G_j]

Phil would still be with McCain if he hadn't called Americans whiners (in public, that is)

http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/2008/07/foreclosure-phil.html

Foreclosure Phil


NEWS: Years before Phil Gramm was a McCain campaign adviser and a lobbyist for a Swiss bank at the center of the housing credit crisis, he pulled a sly maneuver in the Senate that helped create today's subprime meltdown.

Who's to blame for the biggest financial catastrophe of our time? There are plenty of culprits, but one candidate for lead perp is former Sen. Phil Gramm. Eight years ago, as part of a decades-long anti-regulatory crusade, Gramm pulled a sly legislative maneuver that greased the way to the multibillion-dollar subprime meltdown. Yet has Gramm been banished from the corridors of power? Reviled as the villain who bankrupted Middle America? Hardly. Now a well-paid executive at a Swiss bank, Gramm cochairs Sen. John McCain's presidential campaign and advises the Republican candidate on economic matters. He's been mentioned as a possible Treasury secretary should McCain win. That's right: A guy who helped screw up the global financial system could end up in charge of US economic policy. Talk about a market failure.

Gramm's long been a handmaiden to Big Finance. In the 1990s, as chairman of the Senate banking committee, he routinely turned down Securities and Exchange Commission chairman Arthur Levitt's requests for more money to police Wall Street; during this period, the sec's workload shot up 80 percent, but its staff grew only 20 percent. Gramm also opposed an sec rule that would have prohibited accounting firms from getting too close to the companies they audited—at one point, according to Levitt's memoir, he warned the sec chairman that if the commission adopted the rule, its funding would be cut. And in 1999, Gramm pushed through a historic banking deregulation bill that decimated Depression-era firewalls between commercial banks, investment banks, insurance companies, and securities firms—setting off a wave of merger mania.

But Gramm's most cunning coup on behalf of his friends in the financial services industry—friends who gave him millions over his 24-year congressional career—came on December 15, 2000. It was an especially tense time in Washington. Only two days earlier, the Supreme Court had issued its decision on Bush v. Gore. President Bill Clinton and the Republican-controlled Congress were locked in a budget showdown. It was the perfect moment for a wily senator to game the system. As Congress and the White House were hurriedly hammering out a $384-billion omnibus spending bill, Gramm slipped in a 262-page measure called the Commodity Futures Modernization Act. Written with the help of financial industry lobbyists and cosponsored by Senator Richard Lugar (R-Ind.), the chairman of the agriculture committee, the measure had been considered dead—even by Gramm. Few lawmakers had either the opportunity or inclination to read the version of the bill Gramm inserted. "Nobody in either chamber had any knowledge of what was going on or what was in it," says a congressional aide familiar with the bill's history.
..more..

[seemslikeadream]

1. QUIT WHINNING

[G_j]

2. scary !!!

:scared:

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

3. The Commodities Futures Modernization Act Should be called the Enron Enabling Act

Here's link to a segment KO did about the Enron Loophole
http://www.crooksandliars.com/2008/06/19/countdown-mccain-oil-and-the-enron-loophole/


And this is a good, concise article from the Baltimore Chronicle

http://www.baltimorechronicle.com/2008/051908Leopold.shtml
McCain Defends 'Enron Loophole'
by Jason Leopold

May 19, 2008—Sen. John McCain says he opposes the $307 billion farm bill because it would dole out wasteful subsidies, but his chief economic adviser Phil Gramm also wants to stop its proposed regulation of energy futures trading, a market that was famously abused when Enron Corp. manipulated California’s electricity prices in 2001.

Clearing the way for that California price gouging, Gramm, as a powerful Texas senator in 2000, slipped an Enron-backed provision into the Commodities Futures Modernization Act that exempted from regulation energy trading on electronic platforms.

Then, over the next year, Enron – with Gramm’s wife Wendy serving on its board of directors – worked to create false electricity shortages in California, bilking consumers out of an estimated $40 billion.

[trusty elf]

4. "Nobody in either chamber had any knowledge of what was going on

or what was in it,"

Absolutely infuriating! ! ! :grr: :nuke:

[Jim__]

5. Top McCain adviser to blame for the economic meltdown?

How could anyone in their right mind vote for McCain?

[APPLE_PIE]

6. You have to understand "Tinkle down economics "

For example: Look around you ------ Housing prices are falling everywhere. Tinkle downers can truthfully say that housing is becoming more affordable. If you would just quit your whining everything will get better. Just ask the Postman and president Storkey.


APPLE_PIE

May the 4's be with you.

[MiniMe]

7. Phil is still with McSame, he ever left

Just laid low until after the hubbub stopped.