McCain co-chair and economic advisor helped enable mortgage crisis
Former Senator Phil Gramm, a general co-chair of Senator John McCain’s campaign, lobbied Congress on behalf of financial giant UBS to try and stop legislation aimed at installing industry regulations that could have prevented the current mortgage foreclosure crisis.
At the same time he was giving that advice [to McCain], federal disclosure forms reviewed by Countdown show that Gramm was simultaneously being paid by UBS to lobby the US Senate about the mortgage crisis… opposing government regulation… helping to kill a 2006 anti-predatory lending bill that would have tightened consumer protections, and might have mitigated the current crisis…As recently as Dec. 31st of last year, still working for Swiss bankers specifically to help kill the “Emergency Home Ownership and Mortgage Equity Protection Act” and the “Helping Families Save Their Homes in Bankruptcy Act,” a bill that would have let bankruptcy judges adjust mortgage terms so American families facing foreclosure could repay their loans, and keep their homes.
As Senate Banking Chairman, Gramm consistently weakened federal regulations… his deregulation of energy commodities first helped his wife’s employer… then killed it.
In 1999, the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, which McCain voted for, broke down the decades-old wall separating commercial banks, heavily regulated… from the wild and woolly world of investment banking… a wall erected in 1933 to prevent a repeat… of the Great Depression.
One month after Gramm knocked that wall down, UBS bragged to investors that his bill would “liberalize restrictions.”
UBS bought Paine Weber the very next year… and hired Gramm before he even left the Senate.
Gramm’s deregulation helped set the stage for an explosion of banks slicing up subprime mortgages, bundling them with other mortgage slices to hide the credit risks, and selling mortgage stew to other investment firms.
That gave lenders powerful incentive to make as many loans as possible, regardless of risk… because they could turn around and sell those mortgages almost immediately.
With this type of economic advise, you can see what type of regard McCain would have for the struggling American homeowner. This is how Republicans do business: help big business at the expense of average Americans.
Copied from Crooks and Liars.
How about you just link there instead of passing this off as your own? Oh that’s right, Obama points. How soon until you get that Change coffee mug?
There is a link dipshit … and it’s blockquote
You’ve got some air to clear on your last post there, William. Simply moving on to the next set of talking points isn’t going to cut it.
We get that you don’t like McCain or people around him. We understand from your insinuations on your homepage and on this site that you believe conservatives, by virtue of their very existence are dumber than you, not to mention flatly evil.
You consider yourself an academic, but you’re being challenged by another one right now to back up your ideas by answering questions about your declarations. You’ve failed to do so time and time again.
See right here, gentlemen, this is why William can only get a gig in a music department, because citing sources and engaging in the Socratic method of learning/debate is not high on their priority list.
You’re a cheap, witless hack, William.
Before you respond…..I know, I know….I’m a “dipshit”. Anything original to add?
I report, you decide. I am about facts and evidence, you don’t like the facts, you do what most authoritarians do, attack the messenger. That is cheap, predictable.
You’ve reported few facts, but your dangling assertions in your short blurbs betray your skewed, wholly bigoted line of thinking.
I attack the messenger when the message is deliberately misinterpreted by the messenger before delivering it. That’s the only thing cheap about this scenario.
By the way, your “facts and evidence” yesterday that McCain is a profiteer in the war was a youtube link to some poor soldier and his thoughts on the subject.
The solider can say anything he wants on the subject, but he should not be cited as proof of anything except his justified anger and unhappiness about McCain. This is your kind of scholarship, William. It’s sad.
I’m not authoritarian, nor a Bush apologist either. You got some references to back that up? I’m pretty sure I’m the best judge of what I believe, not you.
When I said “they” I was referring to the Bush administration, not specifically McCain. I will amend the post.
“Bush/McSame always tend to side with the contractors instead of the troops, since they are war profiteers.”
I’m glad you’re amending the post.
I’ll say it again, if anyone is showing a profit from the war and is sitting in any seat in Congress or other high offices in the federal government (appointed or otherwise), they should be accountable for their actions to The People. That’s not a partisan thing.
Cameron:
Your problems with William aside, you have to admit that the McCain/lobbyist link is becoming troubling. This one in particular just plain looks bad. (Never mind the fact that having Gramm as an “economic adviser” looks like a terrible idea even without the blatant lobbying ties…)
Who, William, a partisan hack?
Who knew?
I have no problem admitting that. I don’t like McCain. I’m not shilling for anyone. I just didn’t want to move on from yesterdays hackery until some issues were addressed. On with today’s though. I have no problems with the article cited.
Whatever people say about McCain, there could be someone spending all their time doing the same to Obama, albeit the the issue set would be different.
If William, or anyone else, wants to write an article about why Obama is their favorite, you won’t find me commenting on it. It’s pure opinion and needs no sources so long as it stays opinion related.
Whatever is said, I just don’t want writers running their mouth without citing credible sources on subjects that need references. That’s all.
I think the article gives Gramm way too much credit here. None of that legislation would have prevented this. The whole premise is kind of dumb actually.
You’re right, Glen. The mortgage crisis wasn’t brought on from lack of legislation, it was brought on by bad lending practices. Gramm isn’t the head of a savings & loan company. I’m not taking issue with the article, just William’s typical hackery.
However, if people want to start picking at McCain aids…..be careful. Obama’s got some interesting ones standing at his side too.
This is why people hate politics and campaigns…they end up becoming about the schoolyard recess fights than substance, and this campaign is already starting to swing that way.
The mortgage crisis wasn’t brought on from lack of legislation, it was brought on by bad lending practices.
Then you are taking issue with the article.
Deregulation absolutely wrecked our financial infrastucture.
Glen, would you like to provide some analysis to back up your conjecture that this legislation would not have helped to mitigate the crisis? After all, one good hack deserves another, right Cameron?
I can disagree with the article’s premise, but just don’t give a crap about a staffer’s involvement in it. That’s why I “don’t take issue with it.” Not at all. I don’t care about any of the Obama staffers either.
It’s preta-porte. It’s a non-issue for me. It’s not even close to hackery. When I said “I have no problem admitting that” it was in response to “you have to admit that the McCain/lobbyist link is becoming troubling.”
tgirsch is right, it is, but it’s direct ties…not what a staffer did or did not do. I don’t have to swing at every pitch, especially not a “knuckleball in the dirt” of an article. That was my point about Obama staffers. It’s irrelevant to the issues.
HB, the whole premise is stupid. This “crisis” was caused by bad loans made to people not credit worthy. The practice was encouraged by the Fed keeping money cheap. This legislation Gramm lobbied against was an “after the fact” band-aid. The article makes it sound like everything would have been alright if this crappy legislation had passed.
Crooks and Liars:
William:
Even your blurbs are just stolen from the thought-bots on the Left. Care to call me a dipshit again?
By the by, William, if any of my students plagiarized like you did on a report, I’d fail them from my course and report them for Academic Dishonesty.
Done it twice now.
Glen, the crisis was caused by a lot of things, not the least of which being unregulated hedge funds, but that’s another discussion. The assertion is that the legliation might have mitigated the damage, but the main point is that it would have enhanced consumer protections, which is a necessary aspect of a healthy market economy.
Cameron:
The mortgage crisis wasn’t brought on from lack of legislation, it was brought on by bad lending practices.
Bad lending practices which shouldn’t have been legal in the first place. Important distinction.
This “crisis” was caused by bad loans made to people not credit worthy.
Loans which, prior to deregulation, the banks wouldn’t have been allowed to make (though I could be mistaken about that). Loans which you yourself admitted were a ripoff, in a prior thread. That’s something I’ve never understood about libertarians: why do they staunchly defend the right to rip people off as some sort of fundamental freedom?
There is a natural consequence to bad lending practices…bankruptcy. This consequence typically curbs the behavior, but not always.
In this case, Bank of America (who didn’t have bad lending practices) makes out like a bandit because they bought-up many of the bankrupting companies, while the market corrected itself and the lending practices were done away with….and it was accomplished without being legislated, although that has since been addressed by the federal government.
It’s not a fundamental freedom to rip people off, but it has fundamental consequences for the lenders.
Cameron:
There is a natural consequence to bad lending practices…bankruptcy.
The problem is, this doesn’t deter it in the way you think. The people and companies who actually engaged in the practice, for the most part, got out while the getting was good. So even if you ignore those who are losing their homes, the ones paying the price now aren’t generally the ones guilty of making the bad loans in the first place.
In other words, I’m afraid it’s nowhere near as simple as libertarian dogma would claim. If the guilty ones were the ones who had to suffer the consequences even most of the time, I’d be more inclined to stand back and leave well enough alone. But it still seems to me that predatory lending — and call it what you will, but that’s what a lot of these subprimes amounted to — ought not to be legal.
Or not.
Our “leaders” have decided that, insteading of owning up to their moral and financial bankrupcy, the “lenders” can simply make the poor-huddled-masses yearning-to-breathe-free assume the obligation, and then stroll off to party at luxury resorts, sometimes with lots of military around to protect them from the aforementioned masses.