Robert Weissman of Multinational Monitor points to twelve deregulatory steps that led to the financial meltdown. It also does an analysis of the amount of money Wall Street poured into Washington in campaign contributions and lobbying over the last ten years. Their answer? A staggering $5.1 billion over the past decade. Full Story »
Posted by Dwight Rousu
The story shows big corporate interests corrupting both parties with political contributions, which led to deregulation and the current financial disaster. An array of strong legislative action is recommended to prevent recurrence.
We need public financing of campaigns and inaugurations, as a major step toward returning power to the people. This is true in both major parties.
An analysis of what happened and how to fix it. Ms. Goodman's interview with an expert in finance gives me the chills at the money that over 3000 lobbyists and over five billions dollars that was spent on lobbying the Congress and the President. At one time, during the Clinton Admin,. I thought Rubin could do no wrong. Then, he leaves Government and goes to work for the same people that put pressure on him. Nobody's coming out of this mess with clean hands.
Fixing this shit with our tax money, while the executives or in their penthouse or on their yacht, is a travesty of justice. If Holder and the Justice Dept., don't prosecute these run of the mill theives they need to resign.
The financial catastrophe that potentially could arrive was the product of paid politicians who subverted the regulatory controls at the behest of the lawyers and lobbyists pusing the Citicorp-Travelers combine in the late 1990s, with repeal of Glass-Steagall helping to promote an insane level of risk-taking (where the risk of loss was not borne by the risk-takers).
The corruption of the US financial system went hand-in-hand with the grostesque squandering of trillions of dollars on unnecessary weapons and needless wars in the Middle East. Once again, entire tribes of lobbyists and lawyers, paid politicians, prostitute generals and admirals, compromised analysts and commentators, brought this about.
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