McCain rolls a health care proposal peeled from packages in his wallet, ingenious handling, er, regulatory unhandling, that’s toppled our houses, snapped our investment houses and now risks our entire house.
Mike Sunnucks at the Phoenix Business Journal:
The 1999 Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act broke down barriers between banks, securities firms, mortgage lenders and insurance companies. That deregulation repealed Great Depression-era bank regulations with the approval of former president Bill Clinton.
The Gramm bill encouraged lending during the strong housing market but has put banks, investment houses and insurance companies in peril since the housing bust which started two years ago. The measure allowed those lending money to sell off those loan portfolios to other companies, thus disconnecting the lending risk.
Obese Don’t Need Fat
What’s unsaid is that D.C. took America to a halt. States, cities, counties and towns were hamstrung, disabled, displaced by symbolic scissors and loud reassurance. Well before selling our banks and lenders, we gave away protections and constraints. McCain and Gramm [et al] rolled back strong rules, history’s forts, strong built state and local culture keeping predators stopped.
You must try. Repeat after me. Keeping Predators Stopped.
It’s not the game of nature loosed by Bush or McCain or the Republican free market. It’s game shot dead.
Deregulation we want we won’t see until we regulate our government.
Deregulation is a very wide wide word that has hit America between the eyes. Yes, let’s damn Clinton for it too, and be alert to Rubin if Obama is tied tightly.
Deregulating Social Security is million’s of finance sector commissions so large it could spurt stocks higher than Wall Street Viagra.
Deregulating Health Care, a credit card for every heart attack, nudes state and local rules enough to get an old man out of bed.
Precisely.
pssst. It is not well known that a Victoria’s Secret catalog was responsible for a key aspect of the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act.