ENABLING ACTS FOR AN ERA OF GREED - The Money Party at Work

ENABLING ACTS
FOR AN ERA OF GREED

The Money Party at Work

Michael Collins

Huge majorities in both houses of Congress voted for legislation to allow the biggest bank heist of all time.   But this time, it was the banks pulling the heist.

Our financial system looks ruined beyond repair.  The credit default swaps crisis is 40 or so times bigger than the real estate meltdown over subprime derivatives.  The top 25 banks in the United States are loaded down with $13 trillion in credit default swaps and the deal is coming unraveled.  If we accept the highly dubious assumption that the debt from the financial meltdown needs to be repaid by us, were looking at $43,000 a citizen right now.  And we're just starting.

It didn't get that way by accident.  There was special legislation that enabled the current crisis.

This was classic Money Party strategy and tactics.

The strategic goal was to turn Wall Street into a big casino for the "in crowd" of major investors, funds, and institutions.  No rules and no regulations: "let the market take care of it" was the philosophy.

The tactics were easy.  First you set up a scholarly group called the Law and Economics movement to give your scheme legitimacy.  Then you give money and other favors to members of Congress.

At the right moment, you call in your congressional markers to let the banks start doing what they did to spark the Great Depression.  Walk into the Wall Street casino loaded with cash and spend like they're on coke.  Your corny academic group has a couple of judges who decide a case that gives legal grace to the scheme.  The casino is legit says the court.  You then go for the whole nine yards by bringing back the long outlawed derivatives, subprimes, credit default swaps, etc.

The corporate media either ignores your "long con" altogether or covers it on their back pages.

Done deal!  It's the perfect storm to create economic chaos allowing the most massive transfer of wealth since the Visigoths sacked Rome in 410 CE.  It's all about socialism for the rich and survival of the fittest for the rest of us.

But Congress and the Treasury Department will preserve the financial elite in perpetuity.  Why?  To begin with, they'd have to admit that they created the problem in the first place with their enabling legislation.  Congress would also have to admit to absolutely zero oversight on this matter despite warnings.

Legislative, Judicial and Executive Branches - Acting in Unison Deliver the Goods

Three distinct events enabled the current economic chaos.  The baseline requirement for the era of greed was satisfied in 1999 when Congress repealed key provisions of the Glass-Steagall act. That law was established during the first Great Depression. It tightly restricted the opportunities for reckless speculation by banks..  They were barred from selling stocks and other speculative schemes.  Title 1 of Financial Services Modernization Act, 1999 says it all:

"Facilitating affiliation among banks, securities firms and insurance companies"

"Commercial banks, brokerage firms, hedge funds, institutional investors, pension funds and insurance companies can freely invest in each others businesses as well as fully integrate their financial operations."

This was a bipartisan effort with the Senate version passing 90 to 8 and the House 362 to 57.

The once scorned derivatives had been the Holy Grail for "free" market radicals on Wall Street and elsewhere for years.  They said that the restrictions on these products were unnecessary and stifled the free market ("free" for them).  Even before Congress acted definitively in December 2000, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit struck down the ability of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to rein in ruinous high risk financial schemes on Sept.1, 1999.

Reagan appointees Richard Posner, then chief judge, and current chief judge Richard Easterbrook were key movers.  They're also heavily involved with the Law and Economics movement, a right wing, free market movement that opposes almost all regulation in Pavlovian fashion.


7th Circuit judges Richard Posner and Frank Easterbrook started
the demolition of SEC regulatory power of high risk derivatives.

Credit default swaps and other derivatives had been illegal for decades.  In 1981, specific rules were set up to tighten restrictions against these schemes.  But all that changed on Dec. 21, 2000 when the lame duck Congress passed the "Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000'" making these products legal.  The legislation also barred the gathering of information that would serve as early warning on the legalized gambling on credit worthiness.  Regulators were helpless in looking out for the public.  Here's the title of the House version of the bill:

"To reauthorize and amend the Commodity Exchange Act to promote legal certainty, enhance competition, and reduce systemic risk in markets for futures and over-the counter derivatives, and for other purposes" 106th Congress, 2nd Session,  H. R. 5660

This is the vital wording modifying the Securities Act of 1933 that undid the economy:

"Section 2A--Swap Agreements   The Commission is prohibited from -- promulgating, interpreting, or enforcing rules; or issuing orders of general applicability."  The Senate and House bills were combined in to H.R. 4577, an appropriations bill for the Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education signed by President Clinton.   Someone had a perverse sense of humor.

In other words, Congress legalized what had been illegal for decades and it secured the 7th Circuit's opening gambit of handcuffing the SEC in dealing with the new high risk financial products.  Congress fixed the game so that the short staffed regulatory agencies couldn't monitor the market even if they wanted that function.

Good luck trying to find the legislative debate on this momentous change.  There was none.  The enabling legislation for this disaster was passed by an overwhelming majority in the House of Representatives and by unanimous consent in the Senate.

It's important to have a "Roll Call" for the sponsors of the "Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000."  They made it happen.

Top row:  Senators (S. 3283:  Richard Lugar (R-IN), sponsor, cosponsors Senators Tom Harkin (D-IA) and Tim Johnson (D-SD).plus cosponsors, Retired Senators Peter Fitzgerald (R-IL), Phil Graham, (R-TX), Chuck Hagel (R-NE).  Bottom:  Representatives (all retired) (H.R. 5600)Thomas Ewing (R-IL) sponsor; cosponsors Thomas Bliley, Jr. (R-VA), John J. LaFalce (D-NY), Jim Leach (R-IA).

Expect More of the Same

The bailout and other efforts to save Wall Street firms and the large banks are essentially an effort to deal with the problems of derivatives and other market failures.  Wall Street got the court decisions and legislation it wanted and then promptly proceeded to create today's disaster.

They sold these risky products and now they have to pay off.  But they don't have the money even with the current bailouts.  Where will they get it?  The federal government was the only sucker left to tap and that bet came through to the tune of $4.6 trillion.  There's $4.6 trillion awaiting further requests from the Federal Reserve

The culprits are still in place at failing financial institutions.

Don't hold your breath waiting for political action to fix the situation.  Both parties were in on this mess.  Huge majorities in both houses of Congress voted for key legislation to allow the biggest bank heist of all time.  But his time, it was the banks pulling the heist.

That's why the bankers have to stay in place.  To remove them, would be telling, as William K. Black said recently:

"But the other element of your question is we don't want to change the bankers, because if we do, if we put honest people in, who didn't cause the problem, their first job would be to find the scope of the problem. And that would destroy the cover up."

William K. Black, Apr. 3, 2009

But it was all legal, wasn't it?

END

 

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naming names

Nice start image too. I think you left out Larry Summers, Robert Rubin.

A rose is a rose

Geithner too. I was just giving the worker bees their due recognition. Congress and the appeals court have to show up for work now and then. Summers and Rubin just wander the halls of over valued buildings. Neat trick that these guys pulled. They ran the table.

Outstanding column

Add to those two pieces of legislation (FSMA & CFMA) that the "Usual Suspects" who backed those acts also financed the InterContinental Exchange (futures speculation, anyone?) and Markit Partners, now Markit Group (artificial valuation of derivatives, anyone?), along with its Markit Wire (for doing the premier amount of credit default swaps on an electronic exchange), and the fact that the "Usual Suspects" are also those most exposed to derivatives (that is, junk paper) and the picture appears even clearer.

Thanks twice!

That's an excellent collection. I'll bet they were most generous. These characters have gotten away with so much for so long, they think that they're invulnerable. They have no idea how aroused people are.

I had to laugh at the quote from Obama to the bankers - something like the only thing standing between you and pitchforks is me. My immediate response was "Why are you standing there Mr. President." But Obama got the pitchforks in London with those demonstrations. The corporate media acted like those people were protesting some abstract notion. It was the G-20 and Obama is G#1. All that nonsense with the queen was a mask. This is one of the worst receptions a president has received overseas since Nixon went to Venezuela.

They don't have enough money to prop up this much longer and they'll never stabilize the economy enough for the perps to go free. I found the Black statement (and larger interview) so on target. Dangerous man - knowledge and truth.

Robert, I think this article

Robert, I think this article serves as a good foundation for starting EP's "Hall of Shame," (sort of like Keith Oberman's Worst Person in the World.

Amazing isn't it

So many to choose from. Maybe there could be a subcategory, "Best of the Worst" for repentant bad actors, if there are any.

I'm surprised that NO ONE in Congress has invoked their rights to ultra free speech and torn into Wall Street and Geithner, Summers, Rubin for all of this.  But that would be too much truth from that body.

 

 

they have

but unfortunately after one gets into Congress, there is an absurd pecking order and an "inner circle" of power. That's where the real problem lies.

Good piece

Kudos...

There will be a special place in Hell for Phill Graham.

Also...loved that pic you used of the Penguin taking money from that poor guy.