The Rumors About Bill Clinton Are True.

[elleng]

Former President Bill Clinton has a new book out, Back to Work. Its subtitle is: Why We Need Smart Government For A Strong Economy. . .

'"I think what they’re doing is great,” he said. “Occupy Wall Street has done more in the short time they’ve been out there than I’ve been able to do in more than the last eleven years trying to draw attention to some of the same problems we have to address,” he said.

Without once looking around, but completely engaging me, the statesman continued. “There are a lot of young people out there, I see a lot of unemployed students and they are upset, he said. They don’t know where the jobs and opportunities are for them, and they are worried about how they’re going to pay off their student loans without going broke.”

But I learned instantly that Bill Clinton doesn’t just acknowledge problems he has solutions at the ready. He went on to say that student loan reforms were absolutely necessary and that limiting annual loan payments to small percentages of income made sense to not impoverish students as they struggle up the ladder in pursuit of the American Dream.

I asked if the Occupy Wall Street movement should have a platform. I was getting into another area he is passionate about, delivering messages on point. “Yes,” he said, “But it doesn’t have to be a platform; it doesn’t have to be twenty pages. They should start with three or four points to generate a political movement to get heard more clearly.”

There was more, but as he touched quickly on two other points as to how we got here, he said, “That’s in the book.” I wasn’t being sold on the book; I just had my copy signed. I was being steered to the address of important issues in the book and Mr. Clinton’s suggestions for getting back on track to fixing them.'

http://www.forbes.com/sites/shahgilani/2011/12/06/the-rumors-about-bill-clinton-are-true/

[orpupilofnature57]

1. >>>>>>>>>>>>_____<<<<<<<<<<<<

[U4ikLefty]

3. I'll save my money. nt

[hedgehog]

4. "Glass–Steagall Act"

The bill that ultimately "repealed" the Act was brought up in the Senate by Phil Gramm (R-Texas) and in the House of Representatives by Jim Leach (R-Iowa) in 1999. The bills were passed by a Republican majority, basically following party lines by a 54–44 vote in the Senate[15] and by a bi-partisan 343–86 vote in the House of Representatives.[16] After passing both the Senate and House the bill was moved to a conference committee to work out the differences between the Senate and House versions. The final bill resolving the differences was passed in the Senate 90–8 (one not voting) and in the House: 362–57 (15 not voting). The legislation was signed into law by President Bill Clinton on November 12, 1999


Some think-tanks such as the World Pensions Council (WPC) have argued that the dismantlement of the Glass–Steagall Act was only the symptom of a much deeper problem: the emergence of a new economic paradigm associating the worst interpretations of Keynesian monetary stimulus with unbridled deregulation that came to define the Clinton and Bush eras (1993–2009).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glass%E2%80%93Steagall_Act

[lame54]

6. veto proof

[Bill USA]

24. trying to draw a comparison of CLinton to Bush is to enter an alternate reality.

I was watching and listening in the mid to late '90s, when arguments were being made for breaking down the barrriers between investment banks and commercial banks and insurance companies. There were two things going on at the time that had lot of people worried. 1) Japanese banks were getting huge and could offer a complete plate of financial services our banks could not. 2) London was modernizing it's exchanges and banking and was aiming at taking international trade from our banks. Clinton and others were worried our banks would lose the international trade which Wall Street had the advantage in then. This was bringing in a lot of money not only for the banks but for the country (improving our miserable trade balance).

Now Clinton, need I say it, was spectacular when it came to academic smarts - but rather naive when it came to street smarts (e.g. like knowing enough to avoid a super-horney intern) and he expected that dropping the wall between investment banking and commercial banking would work out okay - because HE EXPECTED IT would be REGULATED. Now most Democrats were very suspicious of repealing Glass Steagall. Clinton advisers were impressed with Wall Street and they convinced him Wall Street Bankers were a better class of human being - (uh-huh). Anyway, Clinton thought as long as things were watched and regulated it would work out okay. Where Clinton was a bit naive was to think Republicans could be counted on to regulate ANYTHING (when paid $$$s to look the other way).

The repeal of Glass Steagle did not bring about the TRICKLE DOWN DISASTER by itself. In December of 2000, in the waning days of the Clinton administration PHIL GRAMM slipped in the Commodities Futures Modernization act AS A RIDER TO THE OMNIBUS SPENDING BILL a MUST PASS (ie. veto-proof) bill of some 11,000 pages(Who Wrecked the Economy: Foreclosure Phil. The CFMA was a 200 page rider (i.e. substantial) which virtually NOBODY knew was even in there. (this bill had not been able to get out of committee for months because democrats were suspicous of it.)

The CFMA is the bill that LEGALIZED UNREGULATED UNMONITORED TRADING IN DERIVIATIVE INSTRUMENTS BY BANKS SUCH AS CREDIT DEFAULT SWAPS (CDSs). This legislation is also the home of the notorious ENRON LOOPHOLE WHICH made energy trading by electronic means (off exchanges) unregulated. this is what lead to ENRON's eventual collapse (but not before fraudulently overcharging california electric customers of over a Billion dollars). Unregulated CDSs is what made high rate (sub-Prime) collaterized Debt Obligations (CDOs) so popular with institutional investors as banks sold the Inst. investors CDSs along with the high rate (read high risk) CDOs telling them the CDSs protected the investor from loss of principal by default of a specific CDO tranch.

So offered higher returns with 'no' risk naturally, the big institutional investors bought the high rate (subPrime) CDO tranches like there was no tomorrow. This created an explosion in demand for high rate (supprime) CDOs - which the Predatory Lenders were happy to supply.

but that's not all. If there had been regulation of mortgage originators the supPrime crisis would have been stopped before it got started. BUT THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION, IN 2004 (note: 4 years BEFORE the CRASH) WENT TO COURT TO STOP 50 STATES ATTORNEYS GENERAL FROM REINING IN PREDATORY LENDERS (Predatory Lenders' Partner in Crime ).

that's how the TRICKLE DOWN DEREGULATION DISASTER came to pass. (but don't forget the groundwork was set for the debacle by declining median incomes during the decade of the Bush administration (helped along by tax cuts most of which went to the wealthies few percent) see: The Aughts the lost Decade for American Economy and Workers . This was in part why Bush embarked upon a very expansive monetary policy keeping rates low to help boost the declining purchasing power of the American citizens.

Repeal of Glass Steagall wouldn't have done it alone. If regulations had been in place and enforeced it would have been okay - although tearing down the separating wall between investmant banking and commercial banking is still a high risk proposition demanding rigorous enforcement of effective regulations to work. Better to keep them separate, since the deregulators are still everywhere - just check out the rhetoric of EVERY GOPer prospective Presidential nominee.

[Auntie Bush]

5. Bill Clinton is one of the very best humanitarians and human beings!

And super intelligent. No doubt about it! He thinks through problems and tries to find the best way to solve it.

[Hawkowl]

7. Good god.

I think you have put me off DU for the week. Fucking amazing.

[Auntie Bush]

11. Maybe you can make that 2 weeks!

History seems to prove you to be wrong. You can't crucify him for everything he did any more than you can blame Obama. Don't forget Clinton had a Republican house and Senate and Gingrich to deal with. Obama has Boehner and the non-compromising, filibustering, Tea Party to deal with...so let's be realistic about what a president can do under these conditions.

[Wait Wut]

23. You're correct.

Back when Clinton was running for a second term, I initially fought against him. I hated the man, but I was young and inexperienced in politics. When I got older, I looked back and realized that much of what he did had a point that I didn't understand, that his powers were more limited than I had imagined.

I respect him, but I still don't particularly like him. Yes, he has become a humanitarian and a huge asset to our country, but I'll stop short of the amount of support you have for him. Let's just leave it at I'm grateful that we have wealthy people with souls on our side.

[Skittles]

13. only idiots will disagree with you, Auntie

[MrMickeysMom]

18. I don't think so....

The thinking people will be very critical and expect greater things from every president who helped sell out the American Dream.

[Skittles]

20. I see Obama's going gangbusters trying to do something about it

[marmar]

8. Not having NAFTA around might help with the economy too.....

N'est-ce pas, Bill?

[antigop]

9. Bill should just shut up....along with DLC sHillary. n/t

[Arkansas Granny]

10. sHillary? Surely we can refer to the Secretary of State without using RW nicknames.

[Auntie Bush]

12. Right! Some Democrats can be so hateful and disrespectful.

Seems like right wingers are contagious.

[antigop]

16. Hmm...maybe some Democrats don't understand the DLC. n/t

[antigop]

15. It's DLC sHillary. She had a role in the DLC. She's DLC sHillary. n/t

[Bohunk68]

14. NAFTA. DOMA, DADT

And all the apologists come out and say well, there were veto-proof majorities. Well, so what? If he had any principles then he should have put those principles out there by vetoing crappy legislation. Then let them go ahead and override the veto. Bill Clinton backed down so often whenever the Rethugs would whine that it was absolutely embarrassing to be a Democrat and try to defend him. Pragmatism is always the excuse of the spineless. Then and now. He sure had the gonads whenever Monica was around.

[IthinkThereforeIAM]

17. How many times do you need to be reminded...

... that NAFTA was fasttracked (look that one up) by Poppy Bush near the end of 1992, meaning it became law as it was at that time, save for a few environmental issues that Clinton and Gore could negotiate, ie... pollution controls on the new plants in Mexico. Sheesh.

[MannyGoldstein]

19. Clinton was highly in favor of NAFTA, and

the far-bigger almost-free-trade with China.

[mntleo2]

21. Welfare Reform ...

This bill perpetually plunged families into lifelong poverty. It refuses to allow college and does not recognize other contributions to society as actual "work". In essence it trashed the traditional work that women have done since the beginning of human time, saying that care giving and community weaving is "doing nothing". If they had to build enough institutions to adequately replace this work, it would cost BILLIONS. Instead the only valuer they give is paid work so women are forced to ignore the real work that contributes so they have to go out and say, "Do you want fries with that?"

Yet according to wage statistics, women lose on the average of $275,000 over a work lifetime ~ at the rate of $.70 to every man's dollar. It is not just childcare that give women the agonizing choice as to whether or not to work for a wage, it is also elder care (parents, elder relatives), and spousal care.

In the most backward slap to women and the feminist movement, Welfare Reform says the *ONLY* thing women can do to contribute to their communities is work for a wage ~ and Welfare Reform forces low income women into dead end jobs with no hope of making enough to pay the rent. Forcing them to ignore their kids, put their parents into abusive and exploitative old age homes, and divorce or never marry their spouse rather than take on the burden of paying for their care.

Care giving IS work. If anyone wants to take on Gingritch and his "contract ON America" go ahead ~ but Clinton and his wife were going around swooning about how "wonderful" this law was, Hillary even went around the country with Joe Lieberman crowing about it.

It was not like Clinton wasn't warned by we activists about the devastation for the poor and when we asked what would happen should the economy took a turn for the worst and that safety net destroyed for any falling upper income people if they needed it, we were told, "That will never happen ..."

The whole Welfare Reform was about diverting American attention from the REAL welfare queens, the war machine (in a time of peace taking 47% of our federal budget) and corporate welfare. Instead, in a covert racist move, they turned their guns on the most vulnerable people they knew who could not defend themselves, welfare mothers. They "forgot" to mention welfare moms were predominantly white, putting out in front the face of struggling women of color facing double discrimination. They "forgot" to mention that family size at that time was 1.6 children and that the average time on welfare was 2 years. They "forgot" to talk about the fact that over 70% of these parents used welfare to get their college degrees. They also "forgot" to tell everyone that the federal budget was at that time less than 4% of the budget, that the low income paid the highest proportion of their income in taxes, and that corporate welfare was literally thousands of times more.

Mr Clinton, how about an apology for the crap you did not seem to learn? Nor has your wife. If you REALLY want to elevate the role of women in society, how about giving credit to the work they do with laws and policies that allow them to do it instead of making it harder by promoting more corporate exploitation????

Cat in Seattle

[peacetalksforall]

22. When speaking of Clinton, we have to remember that he is DLC - that means he is not a Democrat

Last edited Sun Jan 8, 2012, 08:48 PM - Edit history (1)

like we Dem voters. DLC is like DINO. He is more a part of the Ruling Party. Our two Party system morphed to three - Republicans and Democrats = to keep up the illusion, with some Independents tagging along - plus the Ruling Party which means a united seamless bi-partisan Party at the leader level dedicated to owning and controlling us by working with other nations for multi-national conglomerates, military, intelligence, banking/investment and media. Clinton is with them as is Sec of State Clinton as are most of Congress.

Note - the DLC was closed down, and supposedly, in its place - and according to Wikipedia - it is now named The Clinton Foundation. Perhaps the old DLC operates within the philanthropic Foundation, but perhaps the DLC is now the Center for American Progress (CAP), especially for what we saw of the DLC when they were active over all those many years - esp, their guest appearances on tv the way McAuliffe, Biden, Feinstein, Schumer and others loyal DLC members..

Fifteen years ago I could have never guessed that we would be under attack by our own in what has happened to Habeas Corpus, the introduction of NDAA, immunity for the companies that feed personal data to a government database, perpetual war, military police, destruction of industries and jobs, bailouts of the wealthy, a takeover of seed by Monsanto, an increase in homelessness and hunger, and death from improper care and the attempts at suicide by Iraq and Afghanistan vets at one every 80 seconds. These were not all Republican victories.