(2 pm. – promoted by ek hornbeck)
Cross posted from The Stars Hollow Gazette
The lack of integrity in the banking industry and Wall St. is as much of a problem for the left as it is for the right. The Obama administration is as much of the problem as were both Bush presidents, Clinton And Reagan.
Author David Degraw and Prof. William Black talk about politicians supporting the OWS movement for their own political gain as opposed to those who truly believe in the protests.
If you aren’t familiar with Professor Black, he is currently an Associate Professor of Economics and Law at the University of Missouri-Kansas City in the Department of Economics and the School of Law. He was a central figure in exposing Congressional corruption during the Savings and Loan Crisis. He is brought the Keating Five to national attention when he published the congressional notes he took during those hearings. Black authored the book The Best Way to Rob a Bank is to Own One: How Corporate Executives and Politicians Looted the S&L Industry which explains concept of “control fraud”, in which a business or national executive uses the entity he or she controls as a “weapon” to commit fraud.
David Degraw is an independent investigative journalist and author who writes for the web site Ampedstatus. He has been participating in the Occupy Wall Street protests in Liberty Park since day one and is part of the working group that helps coordinate the activity.
Besides prosecuting the banks for fraud, Robert Kuttner of the American Prospect makes a good argument for bringing back the Glass-Stiegel Act which was repealed under Clinton. Kuttner says that it would simplify banking regulation and counter the argument that there is too much regulation:
[]. It would have been far better policy to return to the simple bright line of the Glass-Steagall Act.
If you want to be a commercial bank, with federal deposit insurance, access to Federal Reserve advances, and a Good Housekeeping seal from regulators, great. You will have to follow closely policed rules. Alternatively, if you want to trade and speculate with your own money, go to it. But don’t grow so big that you can bring down the whole system, stay out of the commercial lending business, and don’t expect the government to bail out your bad bets.
That system worked very nicely. It was almost impossible to evade, and it didn’t require 298-page regulations, with legions of regulators to police the creative evasions and gray areas.
The discussion of prosecuting fraud, making the banks responsible for it, not the victims and finding easier solutions to regulating the industry is what the Occupy Wall Street movement should be sparking for the politicians, all of them.
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