The Truth will prevail, But only if we Demand it from Congress!
9-11 Inside Job and Neocons Hacked 2004
AlterNet
By Robert Scheer, Truthdig
Posted on July 30, 2008, Printed on July 31, 2008
http://www.alternet.org/story/93318/
This is a time to condemn the bankers, not to embrace them. They are
the scoundrels who got us into the biggest economic mess since the
Great Depression, lining their own pockets while destroying the life
savings of those who trusted them. Yet both of our leading
presidential candidates are scrambling to enlist not only the
big-dollar contributions but, more frighteningly, the "expertise" of
the very folks who advocated the financial industry deregulations at
the heart of this meltdown.
Republican candidate John McCain even appointed as his campaign
co-chairman Phil Gramm, who went from being chairman of the Senate
Banking Committee, where he sponsored disastrous legislation that
empowered the banking bandits, to becoming one of them at UBS
Warburg. Gramm was forced to resign from McCain's campaign only
after he went public with his contempt for the financial concerns of
ordinary Americans, calling them "whiners" and perpetrators of a
"mental recession."
But Gramm and the Republicans couldn't have done it without the
support of leading Democrats. The most egregious of Gramm's
legislative favors to the financiers took the form of legislation
named in part after him -- the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, which became
law only after then-Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin prevailed upon
President Clinton to sign the bill. The bill's immediate major
effect was to legitimize the long-sought merger between Citibank and
insurance giant Travelers. Rubin's critical support for the bill was
rewarded with an appointment, within days of its passage, to a top
job at Citibank (later Citigroup) paying more than $15 million a
year.
That is the same Rubin with whom Democratic candidate Barack Obama
met, along with other influential advisers, on Tuesday to figure out
what to do about the sorry state of our economy. But what in the
world did he expect to learn from Rubin? And why did he appoint
Rubin's protégé, Jason Furman, who ran the Rubin-funded Hamilton
Project, to be the Obama campaign's economic director? Hopefully,
during their encounter Tuesday, Rubin offered himself as a contrite
model of everything that the candidate of change needs to change.
After all, Goldman Sachs, where Rubin spent 25 years of his business
career before entering the Clinton administration, has been one of
the prime corporate villains in the financial shenanigans that led
to the subprime mortgage scandal. As co-chairman of the firm, surely
he had knowledge of the financial hanky-panky that would prove so
disastrous down the road. Indeed, as Treasury secretary, he favored
an extension of the deregulation that enabled this explosion of
banking avarice. Not surprisingly, the current Treasury secretary,
Henry Paulson, also previously headed Goldman.
When Rubin assumed a top position at Citibank after his stint at the
Treasury, he was not above influencing his former employees in the
government. In one notorious instance during the fall of 2001, when
Enron was going down the tubes Rubin telephoned a Treasury
undersecretary and asked him to consider intervening with
credit-rating agencies to hold off downgrading Enron's ratings. When
the story was leaked, some media accounts noted the possibility of a
conflict of interest because Enron owed Citibank $750 million, which
it could not pay if bankrupt.
Despite his skills and his vaunted position as Citibank's chairman,
Rubin was not spared the disastrous consequences of Citibank's own
wild financial manipulations, which, if anything, exceeded those of
Enron. Tens of billions in bad mortgage and credit card debt placed
the bank at the forefront of the current economic crisis, and so it
is weird that Obama would now turn to Rubin for advice.
It's even weirder that the presumptive Democratic nominee would pick
Rubin's man Furman as his campaign economic director at a time when
cleaning up the mess left by the bankers is the highest priority.
Furman hardly distinguished himself four years ago in that role in
John Kerry's failed presidential campaign, with its muffled economic
message that could not be blamed on the candidate's stiff style
alone.
The bigger problem is that folks such as Rubin and Furman, perhaps
best known as an economist for his bold but woefully misguided
defense of the Wal-Mart business model, clearly do not feel the pain
of the voters who are losing their homes.
But then again, why should Rubin, or Gramm on the Republican side,
be expected to care when he has made so many millions off the
suffering of those voters? Not good at a time when we need a
presidential candidate who sticks it to the bankers instead of
sucking up to them.
Robert Scheer is the co-author of The Pornography of Power: How
Defense Hawks Hijacked 9/11 and Weakened America.
© 2008 Truthdig All rights reserved.
View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/story/93318/
AlterNet
Obama and McCain Suck Up to the Bankers
By Robert Scheer, Truthdig
Posted on July 30, 2008, Printed on July 31, 2008
http://www.alternet.org/story/93318/
This is a time to condemn the bankers, not to embrace them. They are
the scoundrels who got us into the biggest economic mess since the
Great Depression, lining their own pockets while destroying the life
savings of those who trusted them. Yet both of our leading
presidential candidates are scrambling to enlist not only the
big-dollar contributions but, more frighteningly, the "expertise" of
the very folks who advocated the financial industry deregulations at
the heart of this meltdown.
Republican candidate John McCain even appointed as his campaign
co-chairman Phil Gramm, who went from being chairman of the Senate
Banking Committee, where he sponsored disastrous legislation that
empowered the banking bandits, to becoming one of them at UBS
Warburg. Gramm was forced to resign from McCain's campaign only
after he went public with his contempt for the financial concerns of
ordinary Americans, calling them "whiners" and perpetrators of a
"mental recession."
But Gramm and the Republicans couldn't have done it without the
support of leading Democrats. The most egregious of Gramm's
legislative favors to the financiers took the form of legislation
named in part after him -- the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, which became
law only after then-Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin prevailed upon
President Clinton to sign the bill. The bill's immediate major
effect was to legitimize the long-sought merger between Citibank and
insurance giant Travelers. Rubin's critical support for the bill was
rewarded with an appointment, within days of its passage, to a top
job at Citibank (later Citigroup) paying more than $15 million a
year.
That is the same Rubin with whom Democratic candidate Barack Obama
met, along with other influential advisers, on Tuesday to figure out
what to do about the sorry state of our economy. But what in the
world did he expect to learn from Rubin? And why did he appoint
Rubin's protégé, Jason Furman, who ran the Rubin-funded Hamilton
Project, to be the Obama campaign's economic director? Hopefully,
during their encounter Tuesday, Rubin offered himself as a contrite
model of everything that the candidate of change needs to change.
After all, Goldman Sachs, where Rubin spent 25 years of his business
career before entering the Clinton administration, has been one of
the prime corporate villains in the financial shenanigans that led
to the subprime mortgage scandal. As co-chairman of the firm, surely
he had knowledge of the financial hanky-panky that would prove so
disastrous down the road. Indeed, as Treasury secretary, he favored
an extension of the deregulation that enabled this explosion of
banking avarice. Not surprisingly, the current Treasury secretary,
Henry Paulson, also previously headed Goldman.
When Rubin assumed a top position at Citibank after his stint at the
Treasury, he was not above influencing his former employees in the
government. In one notorious instance during the fall of 2001, when
Enron was going down the tubes Rubin telephoned a Treasury
undersecretary and asked him to consider intervening with
credit-rating agencies to hold off downgrading Enron's ratings. When
the story was leaked, some media accounts noted the possibility of a
conflict of interest because Enron owed Citibank $750 million, which
it could not pay if bankrupt.
Despite his skills and his vaunted position as Citibank's chairman,
Rubin was not spared the disastrous consequences of Citibank's own
wild financial manipulations, which, if anything, exceeded those of
Enron. Tens of billions in bad mortgage and credit card debt placed
the bank at the forefront of the current economic crisis, and so it
is weird that Obama would now turn to Rubin for advice.
It's even weirder that the presumptive Democratic nominee would pick
Rubin's man Furman as his campaign economic director at a time when
cleaning up the mess left by the bankers is the highest priority.
Furman hardly distinguished himself four years ago in that role in
John Kerry's failed presidential campaign, with its muffled economic
message that could not be blamed on the candidate's stiff style
alone.
The bigger problem is that folks such as Rubin and Furman, perhaps
best known as an economist for his bold but woefully misguided
defense of the Wal-Mart business model, clearly do not feel the pain
of the voters who are losing their homes.
But then again, why should Rubin, or Gramm on the Republican side,
be expected to care when he has made so many millions off the
suffering of those voters? Not good at a time when we need a
presidential candidate who sticks it to the bankers instead of
sucking up to them.
Robert Scheer is the co-author of The Pornography of Power: How
Defense Hawks Hijacked 9/11 and Weakened America.
© 2008 Truthdig All rights reserved.
View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/story/93318/
