John McCain loudly proclaimed that the financial mess we’re in was do to greed, and corruption. Really, John? Did you learn this during pillow talk with former Sen. Phil Gramm (R-Texas)? Wall Street has gone horribly wrong, and it was Gramm who lobbied and won a repeal of banking regulation laws that held everything in check. Laws that were put in place after the great depression.
Once Gramm and his buddies were free to do as they pleased a feeding frenzy of mergers and acquisitions ensued. Most profitable for Gramm was Swiss Bank UBS devouring Paine Weber. Soon after Gramm became Vice Chairman of UBS’s investment banking. Yep, good ole “Foreclosure Phil” Gramm, as Mother Jones affectionately calls him.
The same man responsible for gutting the SEC budget, and threatening to cut off their funding all together if the sec implemented a “rule that would have prohibited accounting firms from getting too close to the companies they audited,” according to Mother Jones article. Gramm’s biggest coupe Gramm was the 262-page measure called the Commodity Futures Modernization Act. An act that “for starters, contained a provision—lobbied for by Enron, a generous contributor to Gramm—that exempted energy trading from regulatory oversight, allowing Enron to run rampant, wreck the California electricity market, and cost consumers billions before it collapsed. (For Gramm, Enron was a family affair. Eight years earlier, his wife, Wendy Gramm, as cftc chairwoman, had pushed through a rule excluding Enron's energy futures contracts from government oversight. Wendy later joined the Houston-based company's board, and in the following years her Enron salary and stock income brought between $915,000 and $1.8 million into the Gramm household.)” as stated in the Mother Jones article.
In 1996, Gramm spent $20 million seeking the Republican presidential nomination, but failed dismally. (reprinted from sourcewatch.com)
The top contributors were:
Service Corp International (funeral services) $52,800
AFLAC Inc. (health insurance) $44,500
Vinson & Elkins LLP (lawyers) $33,750
Arthur Andersen & Col (accountants) $30,250
Enron Corp. (natural gas) $28,250
Anadarko Petroleum (oil and gas) $21,050
Dean Witter (securities) $20,000
Tenneco Inc. (natual gas) $19,750
Sterling Software $19,250
John L. Wortham & Sons (insurance) $18,800
If John McCain become President and the only thing that stand between the American worker and oblivian heaven help us all. The man hasn’t got a clue.
Once Gramm and his buddies were free to do as they pleased a feeding frenzy of mergers and acquisitions ensued. Most profitable for Gramm was Swiss Bank UBS devouring Paine Weber. Soon after Gramm became Vice Chairman of UBS’s investment banking. Yep, good ole “Foreclosure Phil” Gramm, as Mother Jones affectionately calls him.
The same man responsible for gutting the SEC budget, and threatening to cut off their funding all together if the sec implemented a “rule that would have prohibited accounting firms from getting too close to the companies they audited,” according to Mother Jones article. Gramm’s biggest coupe Gramm was the 262-page measure called the Commodity Futures Modernization Act. An act that “for starters, contained a provision—lobbied for by Enron, a generous contributor to Gramm—that exempted energy trading from regulatory oversight, allowing Enron to run rampant, wreck the California electricity market, and cost consumers billions before it collapsed. (For Gramm, Enron was a family affair. Eight years earlier, his wife, Wendy Gramm, as cftc chairwoman, had pushed through a rule excluding Enron's energy futures contracts from government oversight. Wendy later joined the Houston-based company's board, and in the following years her Enron salary and stock income brought between $915,000 and $1.8 million into the Gramm household.)” as stated in the Mother Jones article.
In 1996, Gramm spent $20 million seeking the Republican presidential nomination, but failed dismally. (reprinted from sourcewatch.com)
The top contributors were:
Service Corp International (funeral services) $52,800
AFLAC Inc. (health insurance) $44,500
Vinson & Elkins LLP (lawyers) $33,750
Arthur Andersen & Col (accountants) $30,250
Enron Corp. (natural gas) $28,250
Anadarko Petroleum (oil and gas) $21,050
Dean Witter (securities) $20,000
Tenneco Inc. (natual gas) $19,750
Sterling Software $19,250
John L. Wortham & Sons (insurance) $18,800
If John McCain become President and the only thing that stand between the American worker and oblivian heaven help us all. The man hasn’t got a clue.
1 comment:
Wow- GREAT blog Caron! I am impressed with this and I could not agree more.
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