June 18, 2008
Countdown Special Report: Gas Pains and the Enron Loophole
"It was Gramm who passed the Enron Loophole, partially written by Enron itself -- with no hearings, with no debate. It was Gramm who stopped Democrats from closing the Enron Loophole."
[approx timemark 6:15]
http://www.youtube.com/...
(same clip on MSNBC)
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/...
How many more "Grandma Milly's" will get "taken to the Cleaners",
by a McCain Administration, with the Friends of Phil Gramm, calling the shots?
Stop Oil Speculators
Speculators and investment banks can game the energy trading markets, using loopholes in commodities law to drive up the cost of energy and reap record profits... at the expense of American families and small businesses!
One of the biggest factors in high oil prices, according to many experts, is that investors, such as hedge funds and investment bankers, can use loopholes in commodities law to manipulate the market and drive crude oil, heating oil, gasoline and diesel fuel prices to new heights.
Congress is aware of the problem and lawmakers recently passed legislation to address the "Enron Loophole," one of the major loopholes that opens the door to abusive trading practices, but the law didn’t go far enough.
...
Some experts believe that as much as 60 percent of the cost of a gallon of gasoline, diesel fuel, or heating oil can be attributed to pure speculation and abusive –even manipulative – trading practices, yet most trading is "dark" and federal authorities can neither fully police or see the data in the majority of the trading markets.
(Emphasis Added)
http://www.stopoilspeculators.com/
Free Market Speculation with no Policing is like
"Monday Nite Football with NO Referees, and NO Rules" --
An already rough game really gets brutal,
and people really start to get hurt.
Eventually no one is left to play the Game.
Business 24/7
The banking debacle and Enron: is there a pattern?
By Julian Bene on Sunday, Sept 21, 2008
What does all this have to do with the late excesses in housing credit? The first similarity between Enron and the mortgage lending spree that has led to the current banking crunch is the weak business model.
Countrywide and its kindred mortgage lenders fuelled their growth by extending credit to people who could not afford homes at all and by lending more than other borrowers could ever re-pay. Investment banks like Bear Stearns and Lehman securitised these loans. Making and packaging dodgy loans that are likely to default is neither clever nor profitable. Influence peddling in Washington helped to make the game possible, as it did with Enron.
...
Cheerleading on "innovative mortgage products," from then Federal Reserve Chairman Greenspan on down, also helped keep lesser banking and securities regulators from playing their watchdog roles, which should have nipped the unsustainable house-price frenzy in the bud. The third similarity is that dealmakers creamed off big bonuses at every step of the way: the local bankers received origination fees for every dodgy mortgage, Countrywide and others showed big profits that justified outlandish compensation for their CEOs, and all the Wall Street players involved in securitising the loans racked up large fees that paid them juicy bonuses.
(Emphasis Added)
http://www.business24-7.ae/...
Pyramid Schemes are against the Law --
and they are in the long run Unsustainable too.
Sooner or later every "House of Cards" comes crashing down --
The Law of Gravity can do that. Or even a slight breeze.
McCain Enabled Our Economic Meltdown
By Robert Scheer, Truthdig. Sept 18, 2008.
He voted for abolishing all of the significant rules put in place at the time of the Great Depression designed to prevent a repeat. The two main bills accomplishing that, bills which McCain enthusiastically supported, were the
Commodity Futures Modernization Act
and the
Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act.
The Gramm is former Sen. Phil Gramm, who was chair of the Senate Banking Committee when he acted as chief sponsor of both pieces of legislation. The same Gramm that McCain picked to co-chair his presidential campaign
...
March 27, when Obama delivered his main economic speech blaming for the meltdown the Gramm deregulation that Rubin had helped make law. Referring to the repeal of the Depression-era regulations, Obama stated all too correctly: "Unfortunately, instead of establishing a 21st century regulatory framework, we simply dismantled the old one -- aided by a legal but corrupt bargain in which campaign money all too often shaped policy and watered down oversight. In doing so, we encouraged a winner-take-all, anything-goes environment that helped foster devastating dislocations in our economy."
(Emphasis Added)
http://www.alternet.org/...
Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act
The Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (GLBA) allowed commercial and investment banks to consolidate.
...
The law was passed to legalize these mergers on a permanent basis. Historically, the combined industry has been known as the financial services industry.
http://en.wikipedia.org/...
Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000
The Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000 has received criticism for the so-called "Enron Loophole,", which exempts most over-the-counter energy trades and trading on electronic energy commodity markets.
The "loophole" was drafted by Enron Lobbyists working with senator Phil Gramm seeking a deregulated atmosphere for their new experiment, "Enron On-line".
http://en.wikipedia.org/...
How many more times will the bills "Trickle Down" to the American Taxpayer?
The Party of Big Business and Greed, trashes the place, and we get the Tab.
The Party of Unbridled Greed is Over!
Tell Congress: It's time to Clean House!
The Only "Change" we'll ever see from a McCain-Gramm Administration,
will be "Spare Change" -- if we're Lucky!