BarryBobPosthole
07-26-2016, 11:01 AM
One of my biggest surprises is when the Republicans added a late item to their platform last week: Reintroduction of the Glass-Steagal Act. Their stance is truly a progressive stance on a really fundamental conservative economic issue.
Glass Steagal was enacted during the Great Depression, not to be confused with the Great
recession. It is an old piece of legislation that says banks can't be involved in both the investment and the loan business, essentially. It was repealed by a Republican Congress and signed by a Democratic president (Clinton), and it's is what allowed the fundamental cause of the Great Recession to happen: big banks (too fucking big to fail banks) bet the farm on shaky investments to finance the loan side of the house undermining both.
So now it looks like both parties support the reinstitution of it. And strangely, at the same time Republicans want to repeal Dodd Frank. One one hand, reintroduction of Glass Steagal will break up big banks for certain, on the other hamd repealing Dodd Frank will allow them to grow bigger.
Not exactly a very well thought through strategy.
It remains to be seen how much traction the anti-big bank people in the Democratic Party actually get when all is said and done.
BKB
Glass Steagal was enacted during the Great Depression, not to be confused with the Great
recession. It is an old piece of legislation that says banks can't be involved in both the investment and the loan business, essentially. It was repealed by a Republican Congress and signed by a Democratic president (Clinton), and it's is what allowed the fundamental cause of the Great Recession to happen: big banks (too fucking big to fail banks) bet the farm on shaky investments to finance the loan side of the house undermining both.
So now it looks like both parties support the reinstitution of it. And strangely, at the same time Republicans want to repeal Dodd Frank. One one hand, reintroduction of Glass Steagal will break up big banks for certain, on the other hamd repealing Dodd Frank will allow them to grow bigger.
Not exactly a very well thought through strategy.
It remains to be seen how much traction the anti-big bank people in the Democratic Party actually get when all is said and done.
BKB