| For one, Citigroup, the company that pressured Congress to pass the Financial Services Modernization Act of 1999 (FSMA). The Senate vote was 90 to 8. Seven brave Democrats and one Republican stood up to the majority who caved in to lobbying pressure to overturn the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933, a bill that was passed during the Great Depression to prevent the mingling of banking, insurance, and investing that led to such horrific hardships after the stock market crash of 1929. The absence of Glass-Steagall paved the way for the subprime meltdown we've been witnessing.
The subprime mortgage crisis led to Bernanke having to lower interest rates rapidly which in turn caused oil prices to zoom higher, hitting a peak above $147/bbl. As consumers saw their budgets squeezed by higher gas prices at the pump and their home values declining, consumer spending declined. As companies reported quarterly earnings that were adversely affected by lower consumer spending, stocks declined. The Dow is down 3,000 points since October.
That vote for the Financial Services Modernization Act on November 4, 1999, led to the bad economy we have today. Some top Dems who voted for FSMA were:
Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, Evan Bayh, Joe Biden, Robert Byrd, Tom Daschle, Chris Dodd, John Edwards, Diane Feinstein, Ted Kennedy, John Kerry, and Chuck Schumer.
Some of the folks who brought you this bad economy are now pushing Obama as the man to fix it. By the way, John McCain did not cast a vote for that bill. One important way to fix it and see to it that this never happens again is to reinstate Glass-Steagall. For more, read:
The Bubble Economy | The American Prospect
http://www.prospect.org/cs/art...
"Too few politicians are connecting the dots to the wider failure of deregulation, because too many were complicit in its enactment." Robert Kuttner
Crude oil prices are down $26 since John McCain called for lifting the ban on offshore oil drilling. President Bush lifted the executive ban. Now, it's up to Congress but they left for their summer recess while leaving consumers in the lurch. Obama wants to release oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, give consumers a $1,000 check that'd raise the deficit a good deal, and get drivers to properly inflate their tires. That's just the wrong way to go about dealing with the economic problems we face but please to make sure your tires are properly inflated, usually about 33 lbs of pressure.
One way we can save a lot of oil in this country is to time the traffic lights in cities. We need tax incentives for more insulation and energy efficient windows and doors. We need plug-in hybrid cars that replace large gasoline engines with very small natural gas-powered generators. There are lots of creative, innovative ways we can reduce energy costs and eliminate our dependence on foreign oil but we have to start now and Congress needs to act.
All House seats and a third of the Senate seats are up for grabs on November 4. Please do not vote for the people who created this problem and who have no solutions for it. We have a wonderful opportunity to make a major difference this time. What T. Boone Pickens suggests is the right thing to do for our energy needs and that sounds exactly like what John McCain is proposing. I'm a PUMA and he's who I'll be voting for. I wish Hillary could be the nominee and I still hope a miracle will happen at the convention. Everything should be done to make that possible but if that doesn't happen, it's important to consider the alternative. I don't like Obama one little bit and I sure don't like who he has on his team.
Obama Economic Controller Is Skull And Bones Member
http://www.rense.com/general80...
Obama's selection of Jason Furman as economic advisor is criticized - Los Angeles Times
http://articles.latimes.com/20... |
