Thursday, October 2, 2008

ICYMI: WSJ - Barack Obama Blames Bill Clinton for Financial Market Meltdown

Barack Obama Blames Bill Clinton
Wall Street Journal
Review & Outlook
October 1, 2008

Click here for entire article, summary below:

Barack Obama attacks the 1999 bill and the deregulation former President Bill Clinton says he is still proud to support.

A running cliché of the political left and the press corps these days is that our current financial problems all flow from Congress's 1999 decision to repeal the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933 that separated commercial and investment banking.

Barack Obama has been selling this line every day. Bill Clinton signed that "deregulation" bill into law, and he [Bill Clinton] knows better.

In BusinessWeek.com, Maria Bartiromo reports that she asked the former President last week whether he regretted signing that legislation. Mr. Clinton's reply: "No, because it wasn't a complete deregulation at all. We still have heavy regulations and insurance on bank deposits, requirements on banks for capital and for disclosure. I thought at the time that it might lead to more stable investments and a reduced pressure on Wall Street to produce quarterly profits that were always bigger than the previous quarter.

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