Wall Street Reform

Gosh, I guess people here really AREN'T interested in this issue, are they? I've been kind of sporadic lately because it hurts too bad to sit for long periods of time, so I hadn't responded when I first saw this post but now when I returned there still haven't been too many responses. I find it really interesting that ONCE AGAIN the Republicans have filibustered. They now say they're still negotiating a bill but they all voted in unison - as usual - to not allow the bill to be debated on the Senate floor. Apparently they don't want to appear before C-Span cameras defending the practices on Wall Street that nearly totally destroyed our economy! They'd obviously prefer "negotiating" behind closed doors and then giving their spin (translated BULL$HIT!) to the press. Annie

I was hoping somebody would post on this. I would have eventually but I don't post all that much and I sort of thought I'd wait a bit and now here it is - Thank you Lil Wonder! First, I have not read the bill yet (I intend to) but I'm pretty certain that it is basically a re-instatement of the regulations of the Federal Banking Act of 1933 ( also know as Glass Steagall Act). We've been shoring up and making the financial market stable and now they are going to have to go back to the regs that made them (and us) stable in the first place - HOORAY!. I read through some of the responses on here and I noticed that one person mentioned "Reagonomics". Well, Reagon was the first to dismantle Glass Staegall but he was not the last and was probably not even the worst. That came under Clinton with a Republican senator at the helm. Not that I blame either Clinton or Reagon. The dismantling of the regulations that protected us from another 1929 was a totally nonpartisan effort on the part of politicians who were probably forward thinking (they thought) and well meaning. BUT they were wrong. Bottom line: Investment banking spent over 300 million dollars (back when that was big money) lobbying for the end of the Glass Steagall regulations on the grounds that they were archaic and impeded progress. They got their wish and we all got October of 2008. On the other hand, China set up their modern banking system incorporating almost all of Glass Steagall and wound up with the fastest growing economy on the face of the earth. It's time to learn from out mistakes and those of our leaders and put those regs back. I hope that this can be bipartisan. De-regulation was bipartisan. Why can't the solution be that way also. (That's a rhetorical question and I pretty much know why but on this one issue I genuinely hope I'm wrong) PS: The hint that regulation was coming was when Obama pulled Paul Volker out of retirement. When he was the head of the Fed, Volker went on record against the dismantling of Glass Steagall. His early record with Reagan was pretty damn good in retrospect. He was the one who held the line and let the interest rates go to the sky to end "stagflation" or whatever they called it under Reagan. It wasn't until Greenspan replaced him that the trouble began and regulation became a dirty word. Now, even Greenspan admits that mistakes were made. I guess on the positive side, it's pretty difficult for any politician right now to take a stand in favor of wall street. Maybe that's why so many are laying low on this issue. I don't even care about the motivatons hee. I just want to see some safeguards back in our financial system.

I guess I would have to say that I am really not interested in it.

zzzzzzz. sorry, nothing to do with this bill, just a long day. honest. anyway you've said some of what is in it, what else? are there any good ideas? any really bad ones? when the bunny party wins the coming election we may be stealing ideas rather than bothering to think them up ourselves.