Aw - the Frankfurter is sad because of a lack of substance? Well - maybe he'd have been happier if the reporter had dove into the following topics of substance...

1. Frank's role in the housing and banking collapse (IE his role with AIG in pushing the repeal of Glass-Steagall)...
2. The coverup of fixing parking tickets for the prostitution ring that was run out of his house...
3. Frank's involvement in a banking scandal in Boston with OneUnited...
4. Frank's abuse of office in forcing Fannie Mae to hire his lover, Herb Moses.
5. Falsification of documents where he claimed a $30,000 'gift' from hedge fund manager Donald Sussman was only $1,500...

Just a few 'substantive' issues that may this total sack of crap would have preferred to discuss. Barney Frank is one of the primary reasons for the recession. It is always impossible to pin such a big thing down to just one person, but if you could name one person that was to blame for the economic collapse it would be Barney Frank. This piece of human filth should be dragged out of Congress today, banned from all public service for life, should have every penny he owns confiscated, and then he should be tarred & feathered, pilloried, and tossed in a dank prison cell for the rest of his miserable, misbegotten life.

And that would be letting him off easy.

imho they are all assholes. we elected obama to do something, instead he just fell in line. this isn't just mitt romney's america, it's the america of every politician, sucking from the corporate tit.

do we really need any more evidence that neither party represents the american people?
a republican congress and a democratic president (clinton) passed the repeal of glass-steagal, effectively de-regulating the banks and allowing them to operate as brokers and insurance companies, selling bad deals and then betting on the losses.
here's a very telling graphic which also underscores how our government was bought and sold, effectively ending any sort of control on monopolistic activity. note how it corresponds with the repeal of glass-steagal in 1999
http://i.imgur.com/9DQv5.jpg">timeline of bank mergers

what we have is largely a result of a concerted effort of the banks, brokers, and insurance companies to deregulate, which they did in 1999, repealing glass-steagal. it really should be re-enacted

A. Overly simplistic, and you're confusing to some degree what is Keynesian. A central tenant of Keynesian economics is counter-cyclical budget deficits. When there's a recession, the government should run deficits, and the larger the recession, the larger the corresponding deficit. That's been a non-stop, although admittedly abused, government policy since the Depression. Also, Keynesian economics had components in it for monetary policy as well. Keynes advocated for lower interest rates during times of recession along with increasing the monetary supply. Yes, he did believe that during more severe recessions that monetary measures would not be enough, but he nevertheless advocated for the various monetary policies. These align up with most recessions as far as what the gov't did from the Great Depression on. Just because Keynesian policies disappointed during the 1970's, the ideas were not altogether abandoned ever since. The simple fact of the matter is aside from 2007, there hadn't been a particularly severe recession since the 1970s, so it's reasonable to assume that direct employment wasn't deemed necessary, not that it was seen as bad policy in all cases.

B. It happened to me by the hand of Microsoft. I'm pretty sure they didn't have flunky MBAs. ;-)

C. There are a lot of similar issues involved. My point was only that you can't just tie requirements to it, and that's that. There are a huge myriad of issues that would come hand in hand with stipulations to unemployment. Your idea is still something I'd be onboard with if those devils in the details were addressed. I do see as an example that some people become unemployed because of structural changes to the economy that causes their jobs to never come back. As a case in point, textile factory workers who lose their jobs due to offshoring are suddenly in a position where market forces have no remedy. They lack the skills to get jobs in areas of growth such as more in depth computer skills, and likely lack the financial resources to get the education and training to get said skills because they're unemployed. This is a perfect example in my opinion where the market and free trade fail from time to time, and some force, likely the gov't, needs to step in for the good of everyone. These people would benefit from retraining, so they can get a good job, business owners benefit from increasing numbers of workers who can do the jobs they're needing people to do, and it becomes a win win situation.

D. The last time we tried no deposit insurance, it failed miserably. Banks lent money for people to buy goods and services they couldn't afford, and stocks on the margin. People stuck their money in banks anyway. The only difference is when fear hit the market after the crash, a lot of people, many irrationally, pulled their money from banks, causing a collapse in the banking system, which tanked the entire economy even further.

People lack the time and/or motivation to stay informed on all kinds of issues from local politics, to PTA meetings. I don't see how they could begin to assess what loans their banks were making as far as riskiness. And the typical American when it comes to finances? Yikes! Next to no savings, can't understand how much they should be regularly investing, etc. And it's not just the stupid people. Most Americans don't even know what a mutual fund actually is. How could they possibly make intelligent decisions about the riskiness of their banks' portfolios? I consider myself smarter than the average bear, but even I'd be paralyzed with fear selecting a bank based what little info I could find of their portfolios. Instead, I make sure they're FDIC insured, because that in and of itself entails objective benchmarks to even get that insurance.

And honestly, I don't see many people making decisions about their banks based on rates alone. As a case in point, very few people I know put money in online high yield savings accounts instead of the local credit union, bank, or large megabank, despite the fact that in most cases online savings account providers such as ING Direct pay 2-3 times the interest. I don't believe that's what caused the madness in the banking industry at all. At the very least, there's a massive list of causes well above FDIC insurance, and even if FDIC insurance did play a role in causing the crisis, it also served well in preventing runs on the banks in general that would have compounded the crisis further.

>> ^bmacs27:

@heropsycho
A. Because we've been leaning on monetary policy as our intervention of choice. Direct employment has been called socialism for 30 years. That doesn't suggest a dominant Keynesian ideology. Really it's been this mix of monetarism and supply-side economics which morphed into some mutilated crony-capitalism.
B. I suppose it could happen, but it would take a rough business climate, or some flunky MBAs. In that situation I'd try to increase my business (i.e. make $200,000).
C. That's why we have food stamps. It isn't a perfect solution, but the kid starves if her folks spend the whole check on smokes too. Vices aren't the kind of "demand side" stimulus I'd like to see (one flaw in the Keynesian argument given the current living conditions of the American poor).
D. I really do believe that if the FDIC didn't exist, "the market" would not have allowed deposits to be leveraged by banks investing in exotic financial instruments. Like you said, even the bankers didn't know what the hell they were doing! Without the FDIC people would very quickly ask, "what the hell you doin' with my money?" Rather, since their money is backed by the government they ask, "what sorts of rates are you offering?" It's that pressure from the distorted marketplace that pushed banks into more and more leverage to stay competitive. Those rates were realized by making massively leveraged bets that were only possible by hedging with exotic instruments. Once upon a time people knew their banker. I think that's the best FDIC there could be. There might be some legal patchwork of the Glass-Steagall flavor that might make it work, but chasing down all the unintended consequences would be a challenge. Certainly figuring out how to unwind all the securitized mortgages that already exist makes that sort of policy direction seemingly prohibitive.
F-. Dude, Peter Schiff is a quack.

@heropsycho

A. Because we've been leaning on monetary policy as our intervention of choice. Direct employment has been called socialism for 30 years. That doesn't suggest a dominant Keynesian ideology. Really it's been this mix of monetarism and supply-side economics which morphed into some mutilated crony-capitalism.

B. I suppose it could happen, but it would take a rough business climate, or some flunky MBAs. In that situation I'd try to increase my business (i.e. make $200,000).

C. That's why we have food stamps. It isn't a perfect solution, but the kid starves if her folks spend the whole check on smokes too. Vices aren't the kind of "demand side" stimulus I'd like to see (one flaw in the Keynesian argument given the current living conditions of the American poor).

D. I really do believe that if the FDIC didn't exist, "the market" would not have allowed deposits to be leveraged by banks investing in exotic financial instruments. Like you said, even the bankers didn't know what the hell they were doing! Without the FDIC people would very quickly ask, "what the hell you doin' with my money?" Rather, since their money is backed by the government they ask, "what sorts of rates are you offering?" It's that pressure from the distorted marketplace that pushed banks into more and more leverage to stay competitive. Those rates were realized by making massively leveraged bets that were only possible by hedging with exotic instruments. Once upon a time people knew their banker. I think that's the best FDIC there could be. There might be some legal patchwork of the Glass-Steagall flavor that might make it work, but chasing down all the unintended consequences would be a challenge. Certainly figuring out how to unwind all the securitized mortgages that already exist makes that sort of policy direction seemingly prohibitive.

F-. Dude, Peter Schiff is a quack.

Dude, Schiff is the one spewing the most ridiculous things from a historical perspective I've ever heard, not West. Are you saying right now that Schiff is right that child labor was ended by the free market, not gov't regulation?! That's just patently absurd!

He's saying that a guarantee of deposits by the FDIC fueled speculation. Okay, so when and why was it instituted? In *1933*, it was instituted *after* massive stock speculation among other causes triggered the Stock Market Crash of 1929, which triggered the Great Depression. As banks had invested in stocks, etc themselves (outlawed by Glass-Steagall), made bad loans, including to allow people to buy stocks on credit, etc. etc. people made runs on the banks to get their deposits out before the banks went belly up, regardless of if individual banks themselves participated in the speculation because no one knew which banks were actually in trouble. Some Depression era people put their money "under their mattresses" and a few kept that attitude up until their deaths because of those runs on the banks. The FDIC was instituted to get people to put money back into banks to rebuild on hand deposits, so banks would be able to lend again and actually stay in business. We had the FDIC for almost 80 years now, and the banking system has remarkably MORE stable than it was before the FDIC without any doubt, and this clown says it fuels speculation?! You know what you didn't see in the last recession when the market tanked? MASSIVE RUNS ON MOST BANKS! That's precisely why we have it! And it's logically ridiculous on the surface of it. Just think about it. The FDIC guarantees that I get MY money back if I deposit it to a bank that is FDIC insured, and the bank goes belly up. What happens to the bank if it makes bad decisions? It goes belly up. So why would the bank speculate in that situation due specifically to the FDIC?! THEY STILL GO BELLY UP! You can say the bank bailouts had something to do with it because now the Goldman Sachs of the world know that gov't won't let too big to fails fail. I'm sympathetic to that argument, but the FDIC's insurance on deposits?! RIDICULOUS!

Peter Schiff is not correct here. It's some of the most patently ridiculous things I've heard yet about the economy. If you've read my posts, I'm as pragmatic as one could possibly be, and I'm without a doubt a moderate. I don't give a crap whether specific gov't regulations work or not, but I don't attempt to blind myself with ideology, but this clown is going to great lengths to fundamentally rewrite historical record that's basic freaking fact about the US prior, during, and after the Great Depression that even a basic historical understanding would allow anyone to realize he's an idiot, or is at best making a disingenuous argument to trumpet free market economics for the sake of itself.

>> ^bobknight33:

Peter Schiff is correct. Cornell West foolishly wrong. He teaches African studies which teaches jack about how economies work.

>> ^Winstonfield_Pennypacker:

M'eh - I'll say it again. The OWS guys are angry at the wrong target. They are like a guy who blames his apartment's supervisor for the policies of his landlord.
As I am the most brilliant person I know, I'll just quote myself...
"The FED jacked around the rates. The FED changed Glass-Steagall. The FED told banks they would back ARMs. So in the year 2000, some doofus who earned only 30K a year could walk into a bank to find a literal smorgasboard of million dollar loans he legally qualified which would have laughed him out of the bank in 1995.
Some banks acted conservatively in the bubble and many others chose to do the risky (but still legal) loans. Just like how there were borrowers who behaved conservatively during the bubble, and others who took the risky (but legal) option. The problem was that the number of conservative players was a lot smaller than the risk-takers.
The banks were stupid to take so many risks. People were stupid to take out so many loans. But it was GOVERNMENT that engineered the whole mess. They are the primary offender in this picture. The Federal Government. If government had not interfered in the market, then the whole mess would never have happened."
Cain hit the nail on the head when he said the protesters should be at the White House. The problem is that the OWS crowd is primarily composed of a bunch of fringe, left-wing dupes and they only go where their prog-lib pipers order them to go.


@winston_pennypacker
LOL..awesome.
wait..you are being serious?
duuuuude.
check your facts brother.
who "owns" the FED?
ill give ya a hint..it aint the federal government.
and look into WHO lobbied for class steagal to be recinded/revised.

i find it interesting how tea party folks say that OWS is angry at the wrong people.that they should be angry at the government.
i can agree with that ..in part.
but to ignore the massive influence,corruption and outright theft of our political system by the corporate elite is JUST as naive.
for 30 years both have built a relationship that has become so entwined and entrenched that BOTH need a serious enema.
a plutocracy that has become a machine that enables each other to perpetuate the status quo.

the tea partiers,the original tea party,not the corporate sponsored koch brother bullshit machine,and OWS are both correct in their anger.
wall street for their BLATANT disregard for the law and outright LIES and FRAUD which has been swept under the rug by a government THEY (meaning wall street) PAID for.

the tea party should head down to every occupy protest,join hands with those folks and REALLY start making the whores we call "politicians" start peeing their pants.
because NOTHING gets a government,crown,leader or grand poo-ba crapping himself than a few thousand really pissed of citizens.

but that aint gonna happen because my country still has a majority of retards who buy in to the whole "rightwing nutbag","neo-lib socialist"..blah blah blah.

bullshit fed to the masses in an easy to swallow diatribe broadcast on a media that was bought by the very people fucking you in the ass for 3 decades.

americas propaganda machine is by far one of the most effective.
/rant off

@GenjiKilpatrick: You're conflating a dysfunctional democracy with the douchebags who're making it dysfunctional.

Obama is not Bush. Give me a fucking break.

Click through this giant list and tell me one thing that Bush would ever even consider:
http://obamaachievements.org/list

You can't.

The system we've tried to setup can work, if only evil douchebags would stop trying to get rich, kill people, take a dump on mother nature, and fuck over everyone else in the process. So no, I'm not giving up on it.

It's that old theory of Republicans claiming the system doesn't work, then once in office, they prove it.

So far, the 112th congress--which is GOP/Tea Party--is the least productive congress in history. Worse than the "do-nothing" congress of 1948. These assholes won't even debate an unbelievably important right fucking now jobs bill, but keep shoving horseshit bills about abortion, school lunches, PBS, obamas birth certificate, and combined with the stalling tactics, secret holds, massive fillibusters and so much nonsense it makes people want to throw a chair through their television.

Approval:
Obama: 48%
Congress: 13%

I wonder what that's all about? Could Obama's low numbers mean people are mad he isn't fixing this shit, and Congresses because they're a fucking corrupt, pathetic and evil bunch of grifters that everyone hates? Hmmmmmm....

Oh and check this out: The Republicans created Bin Laden, the Democrats took him out. Talk about cleaning up someone else's mess, sheesh!


@Quantummushroom is dead-on about Clinton and glass-steagal. I point my finger directly at that motherfucker for knowingly signing off the collapse of the international finance world.

Why are people making this out to be Republican vs. Democrat?

AFAIK both sides voted to repeal Glass-Steagall.

The problem isn't Republicans or Democrats, it's the lobbyists that find legal ways to bribe politicians to get what they want.

I'm not proposing a solution because I don't have one, but the problem seems to be with the system itself IMO. Feel free to correct my way of thinking.

Nonetheless, Congress repealed the law and the nation suffered the tragic consequences of the 2008 financial crisis about a decade later.

It may be implied that the repeal of Glass-Steven Seagal led to the 2008 crisis but evidence is scant.

"The legislation was signed into law by President Clinton on November 12, 1999. Clinton's support of the repeal is revealed in the following statement by a Goldman Sachs partner Robert Rubin, Bill Clinton’s Treasury Secretary"

“The banking industry is fundamentally different from what it was two decades ago, let alone in 1933.” He said the industry has been transformed into a global business of facilitating capital formation through diverse new products, services and markets. “U.S. banks generally engage in a broader range of securities activities abroad than is permitted domestically,” said the Treasury secretary. “Even domestically, the separation of investment banking and commercial banking envisioned by Glass-Steagall has eroded significantly.”

And in his own statement upon CLINTON signing the act into law:

"“Over the past seven years we have tried to modernize the economy. And today what we are doing is modernizing the financial services industry, tearing down those antiquated laws and granting banks significant new authority.”

M'eh - I'll say it again. The OWS guys are angry at the wrong target. They are like a guy who blames his apartment's supervisor for the policies of his landlord.

As I am the most brilliant person I know, I'll just quote myself...

"The FED jacked around the rates. The FED changed Glass-Steagall. The FED told banks they would back ARMs. So in the year 2000, some doofus who earned only 30K a year could walk into a bank to find a literal smorgasboard of million dollar loans he legally qualified which would have laughed him out of the bank in 1995.

Some banks acted conservatively in the bubble and many others chose to do the risky (but still legal) loans. Just like how there were borrowers who behaved conservatively during the bubble, and others who took the risky (but legal) option. The problem was that the number of conservative players was a lot smaller than the risk-takers.

The banks were stupid to take so many risks. People were stupid to take out so many loans. But it was GOVERNMENT that engineered the whole mess. They are the primary offender in this picture. The Federal Government. If government had not interfered in the market, then the whole mess would never have happened."

Cain hit the nail on the head when he said the protesters should be at the White House. The problem is that the OWS crowd is primarily composed of a bunch of fringe, left-wing dupes and they only go where their prog-lib pipers order them to go.

I said huge profits. I got no problem with profits

Define that. When is a company making 'huge profits' versus just plain 'profits'?

What I think you (and other prog-libs) are doing is not complaining about profits per se. You are complaining about HOW the profits were earned. Nothing the banking industry did in the bubble qualifies as illegal so we can't say they are illegal profits. So we enter a subjective arena where profits can be earned legally, but questionably. Apple, Microsoft, Banks, Oil, Tobacco, Green, Food - blah blah blah... Everyone that earns profit is attacked as achieving those profits unethically from some perspective.

The prog-libs claim the banks behaved questionably and so their profits are 'bad'. Brass tacks - prog/libs say the banks should have told people "No" when they applied for loans that they LEGALLY QUALIFIED for. I remember a story in the housing bust of a guy who earned only $45K a year. He bought a million dollar home and was paying for it by flipping 3 other properties. The bubble bursts. Now the dumb sap has 4 properties and he couldn't pay for any of them. He lost his house, all his credit, and had to go live in an apartment. A Prince trying to live on Pauper's income. Who's fault?

In 1995, the banks would have told this guy to jump in a lake. The interest rate was over 9% and the only loan he could possibly have qualified for was one with a payment of no greater than 25% of his gross monthly income. Check the tables to see what he would have qualified for in 1995. Hint: it ISN'T a million bucks...

It changed with Frank's "Uffodubble How-sing" act. The FED jacked around the rates. The FED changed Glass-Steagall. The FED told banks they would back up ARMs and other risky loans. 5 years later in the year 2000 when a doofus walks into the bank there is a smorgasboard of million dollar risky loans he legally qualifies for. When someone qualifies for a loan, and bank refuses, bank gets sued.

Some banks acted conservatively in the bubble and many others chose to do the risky (but still legal) loans. Just like how there were CONSUMERS who behaved conservatively during the bubble, and others who took the risky (but legal) ARMs. The problem was that the number of conservative players was a lot smaller than the risk-takers. The banks were stupid to take so many risks. People were stupid to take out so many loans. Government was stupid for engineering the whole mess. But make no mistake - the primary offender in this picture is the Federal Government. If they had not interfered in the market, then the whole mess would never have happened.

Banks are not forced to make huge profits that drive up their share price and create huge dividends for their stockholders. They CHOOSE to make huge profits that drive up their share price and create huge dividends because they CAN. They didn't used to.

You speak like banks are supposed to act like a charity, or a public work like a sidewalk. Banks didn't 'used to' try to earn profits? When was that - exactly? Profits on home loans used to be based on the interest. Why did that change? Because politicians changed the laws. Loans became cheap and the poor, middle-class, and rich all started getting bigger loans (or more loans) that they couldn't have gotten under the old system. They all did it not because banks were 'forcing' them, but because they could make out like bandits while it was all clicking.

Canada didn't have the same problems our country had, because they had BANKING REGULATIONS.

Regulations that the US also had before government interfered in the marketplace. Government removed Glass-Steagall - not the banks. Prog-libs may whine about the banks acting unscrupulously, but you don't see mass arrests and prosecutions do you? Why? Because the cold hard reality is that banks did not break any laws. They simply followed the laws that government created. Don't like what they did? Blame the government. Prog-libs say government didn't 'force banks' to lend bad money. True. But you know what? Banks didn't 'force consumers' to borrow bad money either. But both banks and consumers acted stupidly for the same reason... Because government said it was fine.

And when you say the government pushed for subprime lending so everybody could buy a house, don't you mean bank lobbyists told Bush to push the idea in the first place?

The whole push for this started under Jimmy Carter, built up in the 80s & 90s, and finally took place with Bill Clinton in 1999. Did bank lobbyists push for it? Of course - mostly the bigger financial houses who were really limited by Glass-Steagall. The GOP was all OK with it too - alas. Democrats (particularly Barney Frank) were salivating over it. The rhetoric that built up to the final passage was mostly about how banks who were redlining poor minorities, and repealing G/S wouldu help everyone get homes, increase bank profits, fix your truck, and cure cancer. Both the GOP and Dems let this happen. Nowhere near enough people tried to stop it.

But let's call a tiger a tiger here... Standing up for Glass-Stegall in 1999 was a tough position to take. The proponents of the change were blasting anyone who opposed it as a racist, or a rich fat-cat that just didn't want 'the poor' to get a break. If you were against the repeal, all you could do is point at the Great Depression, and very distant macro-economic philosophies. We now have the 20/20 hindsight to see clearly that it was really the people trying to repeal G/S who were the jerks, @$$hats, and slimeballs. But in 1999 it was very different. Bush never 'speechified' it. In fact, Bush tried to get some reforms going in 2005 long before the bubble popped. But it was slapped down for the same reasons as the before. Wasn't until September/October 2007 that reality finally hit.

The government forced them to create CDO's? to bundle up non-AAA holdings and sell them as AAA? to extend themselves beyond their ability to cover their loses?

In a word - yes - the government forced the issue. Before the government interfered, lenders had actuarial tables and KNEW with 100% certainty who could and couldn't afford a loan the second they walked in the door. Mortgage rates were in the 8% to 10% range. Banks 'made' money on loans with the interest. People who earned less than 30K a year had a tough time getting into a house because (DUH!) they didn't really earn enough money. It was common sense. People that were POOR couldn't just go out and buy houses willy-nilly.

Then the government came along. They wanted people to get loans cheaper and more often and entirely for political reasons. But banks aren't charities and if they can't make the money on the interest (which you can't with sub-prime) then how do you make money? Hmmm... Oh yeah - let's get rid of this little thing called "Glass Steagall"! Now let's use the Fed to jack around interest rates until they are below 5%. Now you banks are commanded by government to make your profits by bundling the loans as derivatives. Now it is almost impossible to survive as a lending institution without doing what we tell you. Oh yeah, you banks? When it all blows up down the road it is YOUR fault... There you go banks!

That was government meddling with the market. They changed the rules so Barney Frank could tell voters that they had "UFFODUBBLE HOW-SING!". It was true left-wing, neolib stupidity on parade and it screwed up the entire planet. They were the ones that changed the laws. The private sector had no choice but to react to the rules that government barfed up.

The system that GOVERNMENT established turned the housing market within a very short time from a staid system of "moderate loans paid off by interest" into a crazed gold-rush of "cheap loans for everyone paid off by bundling". Banks had no choice to play that game because that was playing field that GOVERNMENT created. Any bank offering a SANE loan at an 8% interest rate and making its profits over 30 years was getting clobbered by lenders handing out loans at 2.5% ARMs that were making a bundle on the back end. Banks knew it was crazy, but those were the rules that GOVERNMENT set up and they didn't have any choice but to operate within that rubric. But government said, "Hey - if the loans blow up don't worry about it! We'll cover those bad loans with Freddie/Fannie and you won't be on the hook for it..." Government.

You see, that's what that happens when government interferes with the market and picks the winners and losers by changing rules, laws, and policy. The whole thing would have been impossible without a corrupt government starting the ball rolling for political purposes.

Everybody on the planet learned after the Great Depression that having an 'environment' where bundling and other such investments could exist was not good. That's why Glass-Stegall was created. It stopped a BAD investment practice and it worked for over 50 years without government being "involved" in a single, bloody thing. That's what !good! government does. It establishes a simple, basic set of rules and then STOPS INTERFERING. The reason for the housing failure was not because government WASN'T regulating the market. It was because the government WAS regulating the market in a terrible way.

Reinstate Glass-Steagall - a common sense law - and then ban the government from EVER interfering with the housing sector again. Things work just fine when you set up a simple, transparent system and then forbid the government from coming within a million miles of it.

I dont think I've ever agreed with you but I do agree with your remark that the repealing of the Glass-Steagall was a mistake.>> ^NetRunner:

Repealing Glass-Steagall got government out of the market, and was a huge mistake.
>> ^Winstonfield_Pennypacker:
Repealing Glass-Steagall was a horrible mistake.
...
Get the government OUT of the market.