Tag: Wall Street

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Accountability free trade & free markets general freedom government transparency moral hazard national politics & policies

Banking on Clinton

Hillary Clinton, Wall Street, Bernie Sanders, corruption, crony, presidential race, two-faced, 2 faced, illustration, Common Sense

I’ve been tough on Bernie Sanders, the socialist Vermont Senator and Democratic Party presidential candidate. Why? Because socialism is — to quote a current GOP candidate — “a disaster.”

But I appreciate his campaign for showing former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for what she is, the ultimate establishment insider.

Even while, as SNL parodied, she seeks to co-​opt Sanders’s progressivism.

Nowhere is Hillary’s have-​it-​both-​ways mode of operation more obvious than in regard to Big Finance. She attacks the big banks, promoting her “very aggressive plan to rein in Wall Street.” Yet, she is supported politically and has been enriched personally by Wall Street firms. In 2014 and 2015 alone, Mrs. Clinton was paid $11 million dollars for speeches to various groups, including these financial interests.

On the campaign trail, Bernie has been calling on Mrs. Clinton to release transcripts of her speeches to Wall Street firms:

She gets paid $225,000 for a speech. Now you know that is a lot of money for an hour speech.… It must be mind-​blowing speech, it must be a Shakespearean speech, it must be a speech that could educate and enlighten the entire world.

An anonymous attendee of Mrs. Clinton’s speeches to Goldman Sachs has characterized her remarks as “far from what she sounds like as a candidate now. She sounded more like a Goldman Sachs managing director.” Another said making the transcript public “would bury her against Sanders.”

Understandably, Hillary refuses … until every other living person who has ever spoken a word to anyone on Wall Street does so first.

At his rallies, Bernie now throws his empty hands up into the air to release his non-​existent speech transcripts.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Hillary Clinton, Wall Street, Bernie Sanders, corruption, crony, presidential race, two-faced, 2 faced, illustration, Common Sense

 

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folly free trade & free markets national politics & policies too much government

Wide-​Eyed Wackiness

Where to begin? How about the very first sentence of the New York Times article hailing passage of the Dodd-​Frank financial bill? According to the illustrious fishwrap, “sweeping expansion of federal financial regulation” reflects “a renewed mistrust of financial markets after decades in which Washington stood back from Wall Street with wide-​eyed admiration.”

We’ve seen some liberalization of financial dealings over the years. It was once illegal to own gold. Travelers can be glad of the rise of interstate banking after governments began to permit it in the 1980s.

But have politicians really offered nothing but “wide-​eyed admiration” for “Wall Street” for “decades”? Has the federal government really been hands-​off till now?

Take Senators Dodd and Frank. They were out front pushing home ownership on people who could not afford homes, with multiple programs and legislative packages. This bubble-​making process was further inflated (quite literally) by the Federal Reserve’s cheap credit policies. Many lenders, encouraged by government-​provided (but perverse) incentives, jumped onto the Irresponsibility Bandwagon in the run-​up to collapse. 

So how can the “solution” be additional bailout authority … which will further encourage bankers and others to invest unwisely? 

And the new regulations — these, too, are supposed to help? We don’t even know what they are yet, because bureaucrats have yet to write them, as specified (vaguely) by Congress. In addition to their burden, they will allow pols to shake down Wall Street for years to come. 

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.