"Wall Street's Big Win" - Matt Taibbi

[kpete]

"Wall Street's Big Win"
Matt Taibbi
Rolling Stone
August 6, 2010

...But that very fact that the Merkley-Levin amendment had such momentum is ultimately what did it in. "What killed us," says Merkley, "was that it was looking pretty good."

What happened next was a prime example of the basic con of congressional politics. Throughout the debate over finance reform, Democrats had sold the public on the idea that it was the Republicans who were killing progressive initiatives. In reality, Republican and Democratic leaders were working together with industry insiders and deep-pocketed lobbyists to prevent rogue members like Merkley and Levin from effecting real change. In public, the parties stage a show of bitter bipartisan stalemate. But when the cameras are off, they fuck like crazed weasels in heat.


....the bill even punts on the fundamental question of how much capital banks should be required to keep on hand as a hedge against meltdowns, leaving the question to the Basel banking conferences in Switzerland later this year, where financial interests from all over the world will gather to hammer things out in inscrutable backroom negotiations...

--SNIP--

...Worst of all, some analysts warn that the failure to rein in Wall Street makes another meltdown a near-certainty. "Oh, sure, within a decade," said Johnson, the MIT economist. "The question: Is it three years or seven years?"

more:
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/17390/188551
via:
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2010/8/7/891011/-Two-Weekend-Must-Reads:-Rich-and-Taibbi

[ibegurpard]

1. butbutbut

I thought this was one of the great accomplishments?
didn't we fix this?
or something?

[underpants]

2. Lots to read- marking

thanks

[gulliver]

3. Taibbi is a very hard working writer.

And he's every bit as good looking as he is talented.

[KG]

4. 'But when the cameras are off, they fuck like crazed weasels in heat.'

great summation of party politics in america today.

[QC]

5. KICK!

[scarletwoman]

6. k&r

[depakid]

7. This statement stands out (though it's a paraphrase of what others been saying for months)

Obama and the Democrats boasted that the bill is the "toughest financial reform since the ones we created in the aftermath of the Great Depression" – a claim that would maybe be more impressive if Congress had passed any financial reforms since the Great Depression, or at least any that didn't specifically involve radically undoing the Depression-era laws.