Glass-Steagal has everything to do with the current crisis. Without its repeal there wouldn't be a quadrillion in derivatives (of course no one knows the real value of that). That is the big black hole that is causing this entire mess. It is why gold and other commodities were going down even though the FED was pumping in 100's of billions of dollars. People were liquidating their paper assets of gold because they had no physical gold to cover their positions.
In 1933, Senator Carter Glass (D-Va.) and Congressman Henry Steagall (D-Ala.) introduce the historic legislation that bears their name, seeking to limit the conflicts of interest created when commercial banks are permitted to underwrite stocks or bonds. In the early part of the century, individual investors were seriously hurt by banks whose overriding interest was promoting stocks of interest and benefit to the banks, rather than to individual investors. The new law bans commercial banks from underwriting securities, forcing banks to choose between being a simple lender or an underwriter (brokerage).
After 12 attempts in 25 years, Congress finally repeals Glass-Steagall, rewarding financial companies for more than 20 years and $300 million worth of lobbying efforts. Supporters hail the change as the long-overdue demise of a Depression-era relic.
On Oct. 21, with the House-Senate conference committee deadlocked after marathon negotiations, the main sticking point is partisan bickering over the bill's effect on the Community Reinvestment Act, which sets rules for lending to poor communities. Sandy Weill calls President Clinton in the evening to try to break the deadlock after Senator Phil Gramm, chairman of the Banking Committee, warned Citigroup lobbyist Roger Levy that Weill has to get White House moving on the bill or he would shut down the House-Senate conference. Serious negotiations resume, and a deal is announced at 2:45 a.m. on Oct. 22. Whether Weill made any difference in precipitating a deal is unclear.
On Oct. 22, Weill and John Reed issue a statement congratulating Congress and President Clinton, including 19 administration officials and lawmakers by name. The House and Senate approve a final version of the bill on Nov. 4, and Clinton signs it into law later that month.
Just days after the administration (including the Treasury Department) agrees to support the repeal, Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin, the former co-chairman of a major Wall Street investment bank, Goldman Sachs, raises eyebrows by accepting a top job at Citigroup as Weill's chief lieutenant. The previous year, Weill had called Secretary Rubin to give him advance notice of the upcoming merger announcement. When Weill told Rubin he had some important news, the secretary reportedly quipped, "You're buying the government?"
I suggest reading the whole history on the link I provided. You can't blame just one party for it. Had the Republicans been completely against it it would have never passed. Had Clinton vetoed it, it wouldn't have been overridden. Alan Greenspan is also to blame.
In December 1996, with the support of Chairman Alan Greenspan, the Federal Reserve Board issues a precedent-shattering decision permitting bank holding companies to own investment bank affiliates with up to 25 percent of their business in securities underwriting (up from 10 percent).
This expansion of the loophole created by the Fed's 1987 reinterpretation of Section 20 of Glass-Steagall effectively renders Glass-Steagall obsolete. Virtually any bank holding company wanting to engage in securities business would be able to stay under the 25 percent limit on revenue. However, the law remains on the books, and along with the Bank Hol
Rigging an election will always be possible, regardless if it is paper or electronic.
It is much harder to rig a paper ballot if you have a lot of individuals monitoring polling stations by videotaping the process and also following where they take the votes! Please go to blackboxvoting.org to find out how to best monitor your election.
The problem with most electronic voting machines is that even when you participate the votes could easily be manipulated at a central tabulating location.
You should never expect to have a clean election if you simply cast your ballot and leave. The price for liberty is eternal vigilance.
In case you missed it, George Bush isn't a right-winger. Most conservative right-wingers want to get rid of the Department of Education and government out of education all together.
If you want to blame someone, blame everyone. Just read this article about how brainwashed kids are becoming. They are making kids religious zealots, although its not Christianity.
Maybe you should read this book, The deliberate dumbing down of america. The author of this book was one of the top people inReagan's Department of Education.
You should also check out the Reece Commission, which investigated the tax-exempt foundations in the 1950's. Then you'll find out that this was completely deliberate. You'll also find out it has nothing to do with political parties or the false left-right paradigm we're fed on the TV all day long.
Of course you'll probably just call me crazy without looking at the documents. All I ask is you look at it yourself, then call me crazy;)
The people who are delusional are the ones who think you can fix the problem of inflation with more inflation.
There has been talk about closing down the international markets and starting a new Bretton Woods type agreement. Of course this new agreement has probably been written and just waiting for this crisis, just like the PATRIOT ACT was written before 9/11 and the current bailout bill was written back in March.
It is great to know that the institutions that helped create this mess are now the ones who will pose as the saviors of it. If you think that its accidental then you may be the one who is delusional. There was plenty of people warning about this crisis for many years (click the link in my signature to find them). Those people aren't some genius prophets, they just stated the obvious.
Remember that the primary function of government is to pretend to fail.
You can find interviews of him explaining it all over the internet. It has nothing to do with "lasse-faire" capitalism.
The IMF/World Bank gives a country (normally with a valuable natural resource) a loan it knows it can't pay off to build infrastructure that benefits only a few big corporations, normally foreign. Once the country defaults, the banks get the country to sign over its infrastructure and natural resources to them and other corporations.
That isn't capitalism of any form. It is legalized theft.
No one said it is happening to everyone. That misses the point entirely. Illegally searching even a small percentage of people is unnacceptable. Especially since people affected by this have almost no redress and the DHS doesn't even accurately report when they do this.
I guess its only a problem when it happens to you. Maybe you should pick up a history book and find out how well that attitude worked in the 1930's and many other time periods.
If you haven't noticed lately, the DHS can search your laptop, make copies of everything on your laptop and keep it. If you are a person who loves exercising arbitrary power over people, you probably work for the DHS or another government agency.
Its really funny that a person who doesn't care about basic civil liberties is posting as AC. However, the joke is probably on me and you are just a troll.:)
"None of the alleged terrorists had made a bomb. None had bought a plane ticket. Many did not even have passports, which given the efficiency of the UK Passport Agency would mean they couldn't be a plane bomber for quite some time," says Former British Ambassador to Uzbekistan Craig Murray
None of the alleged terrorists were convicted of trying to blow up an airplane. It is kind of hard to blow up a trans-atlantic flight when you don't have a passport. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/7605583.stm
This is a minor issue, not a vital one. I'm glad they don't waste debate time talking about it.
Debates are for people who think that watching them will somehow make them informed. I personally would like them to talk about net neutrality, just to get a good laugh about it. However, the audience of the debate probably doesn't know what net neutrality is, let alone the candidates.
Who ever gets into office will be told what to do about net neutrality by some unelected person behind the scenes. Their stances on net neutrality are vague for a reason, so they can change their minds at a moments notice.
I can dismiss a lot of the things Lincoln said and did which today would seem racist, but the book has a lot more than that.
It spends a lot more time dissecting the reasons Lincoln went to war, his police state and his economic agenda. He uses a lot of sources from the time period to make his cases.
Lincoln suspended habeus corpus (later to be found that it was done unconstitutionally) and arrested 1000's of newspaper writers, editors, political dissidents and even 2 congressmen.
because we all know that Nixon never had people willing to commit crimes for him.
Nixon would never have people commit crimes for him. He'd do it himself because like he said, "When the President does it, that means it is not illegal."
Of course I am kidding, but what does Nixon have to do with Obama and some of his crazy followers? Just because Nixon did it doesn't make it right for Obama or anyone else. Nor does it let him or others off the hook. Some of Obama's followers are very scary, but that doesn't mean you should vote for or against him.
Personally, both McCain and Obama are the same to me. Both wanted the "bailout," both have interventionist foreign policies which is the reason for this mess in the first place. It just sounds like more of the same from from both.
I started noticing a certain "bug" on youtube where certain clips would be stuck at 200-300 views, yet have more ratings and comments than the view count. It first popped up on Ron Paul and other political videos. The bug would last long enough to keep the clip out of any most viewed category on the main page.
I've been using youtube since its inception and have only noticed this "bug" on political clips. It would be great if someone could share an experience of this "bug" on a non-political clip.
It is also odd that Google Video recently took the view count off their videos. The top 10 lists on google video used to be filled with alternative media documentaries, but after the change they show up less often.
Slashdot Mirror
Glass-Steagal has everything to do with the current crisis. Without its repeal there wouldn't be a quadrillion in derivatives (of course no one knows the real value of that). That is the big black hole that is causing this entire mess. It is why gold and other commodities were going down even though the FED was pumping in 100's of billions of dollars. People were liquidating their paper assets of gold because they had no physical gold to cover their positions.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/wallstreet/weill/demise.html
In 1933, Senator Carter Glass (D-Va.) and Congressman Henry Steagall (D-Ala.) introduce the historic legislation that bears their name, seeking to limit the conflicts of interest created when commercial banks are permitted to underwrite stocks or bonds. In the early part of the century, individual investors were seriously hurt by banks whose overriding interest was promoting stocks of interest and benefit to the banks, rather than to individual investors. The new law bans commercial banks from underwriting securities, forcing banks to choose between being a simple lender or an underwriter (brokerage).
After 12 attempts in 25 years, Congress finally repeals Glass-Steagall, rewarding financial companies for more than 20 years and $300 million worth of lobbying efforts. Supporters hail the change as the long-overdue demise of a Depression-era relic.
On Oct. 21, with the House-Senate conference committee deadlocked after marathon negotiations, the main sticking point is partisan bickering over the bill's effect on the Community Reinvestment Act, which sets rules for lending to poor communities. Sandy Weill calls President Clinton in the evening to try to break the deadlock after Senator Phil Gramm, chairman of the Banking Committee, warned Citigroup lobbyist Roger Levy that Weill has to get White House moving on the bill or he would shut down the House-Senate conference. Serious negotiations resume, and a deal is announced at 2:45 a.m. on Oct. 22. Whether Weill made any difference in precipitating a deal is unclear.
On Oct. 22, Weill and John Reed issue a statement congratulating Congress and President Clinton, including 19 administration officials and lawmakers by name. The House and Senate approve a final version of the bill on Nov. 4, and Clinton signs it into law later that month.
Just days after the administration (including the Treasury Department) agrees to support the repeal, Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin, the former co-chairman of a major Wall Street investment bank, Goldman Sachs, raises eyebrows by accepting a top job at Citigroup as Weill's chief lieutenant. The previous year, Weill had called Secretary Rubin to give him advance notice of the upcoming merger announcement. When Weill told Rubin he had some important news, the secretary reportedly quipped, "You're buying the government?"
I suggest reading the whole history on the link I provided. You can't blame just one party for it. Had the Republicans been completely against it it would have never passed. Had Clinton vetoed it, it wouldn't have been overridden. Alan Greenspan is also to blame.
In December 1996, with the support of Chairman Alan Greenspan, the Federal Reserve Board issues a precedent-shattering decision permitting bank holding companies to own investment bank affiliates with up to 25 percent of their business in securities underwriting (up from 10 percent).
This expansion of the loophole created by the Fed's 1987 reinterpretation of Section 20 of Glass-Steagall effectively renders Glass-Steagall obsolete. Virtually any bank holding company wanting to engage in securities business would be able to stay under the 25 percent limit on revenue. However, the law remains on the books, and along with the Bank Hol
Rigging an election will always be possible, regardless if it is paper or electronic.
It is much harder to rig a paper ballot if you have a lot of individuals monitoring polling stations by videotaping the process and also following where they take the votes! Please go to blackboxvoting.org to find out how to best monitor your election.
The problem with most electronic voting machines is that even when you participate the votes could easily be manipulated at a central tabulating location.
You should never expect to have a clean election if you simply cast your ballot and leave. The price for liberty is eternal vigilance.
I don't know how I was modded insightful, I was trying to be funny.
The parents post was very insightful with or without the remark I joked about.
1.5% is still a hell of a lot of people.
Weird. No one ever modded me insightful for saying that about Ron Paul. :)
But we don't have any oil!
There's plenty of oil, but there is a lot more profit in scarcity.
Thanks. Although it seems that one man's insightfullness is another man's flamebait.
In case you missed it, George Bush isn't a right-winger. Most conservative right-wingers want to get rid of the Department of Education and government out of education all together.
If you want to blame someone, blame everyone. Just read this article about how brainwashed kids are becoming. They are making kids religious zealots, although its not Christianity.
Maybe you should read this book, The deliberate dumbing down of america. The author of this book was one of the top people inReagan's Department of Education.
You should also check out the Reece Commission, which investigated the tax-exempt foundations in the 1950's. Then you'll find out that this was completely deliberate. You'll also find out it has nothing to do with political parties or the false left-right paradigm we're fed on the TV all day long.
Of course you'll probably just call me crazy without looking at the documents. All I ask is you look at it yourself, then call me crazy ;)
The people who are delusional are the ones who think you can fix the problem of inflation with more inflation.
There has been talk about closing down the international markets and starting a new Bretton Woods type agreement. Of course this new agreement has probably been written and just waiting for this crisis, just like the PATRIOT ACT was written before 9/11 and the current bailout bill was written back in March.
It is great to know that the institutions that helped create this mess are now the ones who will pose as the saviors of it. If you think that its accidental then you may be the one who is delusional. There was plenty of people warning about this crisis for many years (click the link in my signature to find them). Those people aren't some genius prophets, they just stated the obvious.
Remember that the primary function of government is to pretend to fail.
That's not at all what actually happens. You should read John Perkins' book Confession of an Economic Hitman
You can find interviews of him explaining it all over the internet. It has nothing to do with "lasse-faire" capitalism.
The IMF/World Bank gives a country (normally with a valuable natural resource) a loan it knows it can't pay off to build infrastructure that benefits only a few big corporations, normally foreign. Once the country defaults, the banks get the country to sign over its infrastructure and natural resources to them and other corporations.
That isn't capitalism of any form. It is legalized theft.
No one said it is happening to everyone. That misses the point entirely. Illegally searching even a small percentage of people is unnacceptable. Especially since people affected by this have almost no redress and the DHS doesn't even accurately report when they do this.
I guess its only a problem when it happens to you. Maybe you should pick up a history book and find out how well that attitude worked in the 1930's and many other time periods.
If you haven't noticed lately, the DHS can search your laptop, make copies of everything on your laptop and keep it. If you are a person who loves exercising arbitrary power over people, you probably work for the DHS or another government agency.
Its really funny that a person who doesn't care about basic civil liberties is posting as AC. However, the joke is probably on me and you are just a troll. :)
What if it just randomly transmits a "braking now!" message in order to cause other cars in the vicinity to put on their brakes?
That's possible now. Its called tapping your brake.
What about atmospheric water generators? It seems like a much better way of getting water out of a high-humidity environment.
Ecoloblue is a very interesting product that I wish I had the money to buy*.
*I was not paid by Ecoloblue to make this post
That liquid bomb plot was complete BS.
"None of the alleged terrorists had made a bomb. None had bought a plane ticket. Many did not even have passports, which given the efficiency of the UK Passport Agency would mean they couldn't be a plane bomber for quite some time," says Former British Ambassador to Uzbekistan Craig Murray
None of the alleged terrorists were convicted of trying to blow up an airplane. It is kind of hard to blow up a trans-atlantic flight when you don't have a passport.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/7605583.stm
If the Supreme Court thinks that growing wheat on your own land for your own consumption is interstate commerce, then just about anything is.
This is a minor issue, not a vital one. I'm glad they don't waste debate time talking about it.
Debates are for people who think that watching them will somehow make them informed. I personally would like them to talk about net neutrality, just to get a good laugh about it. However, the audience of the debate probably doesn't know what net neutrality is, let alone the candidates.
Who ever gets into office will be told what to do about net neutrality by some unelected person behind the scenes. Their stances on net neutrality are vague for a reason, so they can change their minds at a moments notice.
You should try reading The Real Lincoln by Lorenzo.
I can dismiss a lot of the things Lincoln said and did which today would seem racist, but the book has a lot more than that.
It spends a lot more time dissecting the reasons Lincoln went to war, his police state and his economic agenda. He uses a lot of sources from the time period to make his cases.
"Treason doth never prosper: what's the reason? Why if it prosper, none dare call it treason."
-Ovid
This isn't new to America by any means. The only new part about it is that we learn about it quicker.
In the 1950's, J Edgar Hoover wanted to arrest over suspected of being disloyal.
Lincoln suspended habeus corpus (later to be found that it was done unconstitutionally) and arrested 1000's of newspaper writers, editors, political dissidents and even 2 congressmen.
I thought my BBQ sauce was going to win the Nobel Prize for Chemistry :(
Everyone knows that BBQ sauce goes under the peace category.
Isn't Burger King releasing games funded entirely by Burger King with Burger King themes in them? (Did I mention Burger King?)
Behold, McKids!
because we all know that Nixon never had people willing to commit crimes for him.
Nixon would never have people commit crimes for him. He'd do it himself because like he said, "When the President does it, that means it is not illegal."
Of course I am kidding, but what does Nixon have to do with Obama and some of his crazy followers? Just because Nixon did it doesn't make it right for Obama or anyone else. Nor does it let him or others off the hook. Some of Obama's followers are very scary, but that doesn't mean you should vote for or against him.
Personally, both McCain and Obama are the same to me. Both wanted the "bailout," both have interventionist foreign policies which is the reason for this mess in the first place. It just sounds like more of the same from from both.
Do you always write like a trailer for Steven Seagal movie?
The trailer is usually the best part of his movies!
I started noticing a certain "bug" on youtube where certain clips would be stuck at 200-300 views, yet have more ratings and comments than the view count. It first popped up on Ron Paul and other political videos. The bug would last long enough to keep the clip out of any most viewed category on the main page.
I've been using youtube since its inception and have only noticed this "bug" on political clips. It would be great if someone could share an experience of this "bug" on a non-political clip.
It is also odd that Google Video recently took the view count off their videos. The top 10 lists on google video used to be filled with alternative media documentaries, but after the change they show up less often.
Why would they need to pretend? They seem to be quite practiced at failing for real to me.
Pretend as in deliberately failing and making it look like a mistake in order to get more money and power.