Phil and Me: Ex-Sen. Gramm Says of the Economic Collapse, Don't Blame Me (Video)
| Fri Jan. 30, 2009 7:03 AM PST
Last year, I wrote an article explaining how former Republican Senator Phil Gramm had helped grease the way to the subprime meltdown in 2000 when he was chairman of the Senate Banking Committee. Gramm wouldn't talk to me for the article. At the time, he was a close adviser to presidential candidate John McCain, and his past support of financial deregulation and his subsequent work as a lobbyist for UBS, the Swiss banking giant, became a campaign issue. Neither McCain nor Gramm addressd these matters publicly. And then Gramm generated further controversy when he dismissed Americans worried about the economy as "whiners." After that, McCain distanced himself from Gramm, who faded from the campaign trail.
Now, Gramm is back--at least to defend himself. Last week, he spoke at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington. The subject of his talk: was deregulation responsible for the current financial disaster? The real subject: was Gramm responsible for the current financial disaster? Mother Jones and the American News Project filmed Gramm, and I was able to pose a couple of questions to him. See what happened below in a video that was edited by Tay Wiles.
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Comments
Now that he's out in the sunlight, the media should get all over this guy. Well done, David.
Should've stayed in your paneled office, Foreclosure Phil. People would've forgotten you. But you couldn't supress your ego and your desire to put your own spin on the story.
Guess what? You're not the only one w/a keyboard or pen.
Submitted by Eric Ferguson (not verified) on Fri Jan. 30, 2009 1:48 PM PST.
I've heard that he slipped the provision preventing the CTF board from regulating swaps into the bill right before the vote and didn't tell anyone. I could be thinking of a different provision he slipped in, or maybe it was another financial industry bill. Am I on the right track? If so, that is something I'd like to see him try to explain.
It is easy to see Phil is taking care of Phil's business not the people's business. Phil, regulation is there to protect, you may feel you are not in need but most Americans, especially passive investors, are. He also suffers from the big boy junk thought syndrome; if I was wrong why am I rich. Or, pay me enough and 2+2 will =5.
Eric,
You're partially right. Gramm helped slip the entire Commodity Futures Modernization Act into a big spending bill right before the spending bill was approved on a voice vote. And the CFMA had the provision saying that the Commodity Futures Trading Commission could not regulate swaps as futures. Gramm claims this was not done in a secretive fashion. But the bill had been dead because of various disagreements over various provisions and then at the last minute of the session it was stuck on to the spending bill without much (or any) public notice. So Gramm and others were taking advantage of the legislative chaos at the time. At AEI, he tried to defend himself on this point. I was not able to challenge him on this or ask about the nation of "whiners" remark. I only had the chance to ask a couple of questions, and I decided to focus on Gramm and swaps--which was what I had written about.
David Cor(m) states: ...Gramm helped slip the entire Commodity Futures Modernization Act into a big spending bill right before the spending bill was approved on a voice vote.
Maybe it's time to get behind a simple, direct solution to this madness in Federal government (widely used by both major parties) and make some noise about the "One Subject At A Time Act", being proposed at DownsizeDC.org?
How 'bout it, MoJo?
Wouldn't hurt to back the "Read The Bills Act" they propose, either, so that we could quit hearing people like the Speaker of the House publicly humiliate herself by stating to the press "None of us knew that was in the bill when we voted for it!"
"Due Diligence" ring a bell with anyone inside the beltway, does it?
Not so's you'd notice!
While I would like to pin it all on this weasil, I heard a great segment on This American Life prior to the passing of the No Bankers Left Behind Act (i.e., $700 B bailout w/ no strings...) that clearly explained that the clinton administration was all for it, too. Check out the podcast. My pitchfork is ready, for when people finally wake up and take to the streets. Should be any day now...especially after Wall Street got their $18B in yearend bonuses.
You forgot to mention his involvement in the UBS scandal and hiding taxable income but I guess that it so common in D.C. now that it is taken for granted until they run for office..According to Mother Jones, Gramm put the "Modernization of Futures Act" Bill through as an add-on to a needed bill when he was acting as a lobbyist for Exxon-Mobile. Really surprising how many unAmerican activities that Exxon-Mobile has been involved in through the years-pity Congress didn't put their management in jail back in the 1940's for sponsoring Himmels Circle of Friends fund for Hitler and giving away our gasoline technology for WWII-They were Standard Oil of New Jersey back then and called before three Congressional Committees for Treason an Impeding the U.S. War effort but everyone tends to forget this!
I am half-way through a book written by Peter Brewton in 1993 called "The Mafia, CIA & George Bush." Amazingly enough, when Bush 41 left office, a little scandal called the Savings & Loan Fiasco was unfolding and U.S. investors & taxpayers were fleeced by a slick gang of banksters. Read it for yourself and count the number of Bushes involved. Back then it was $700 Million. Consider the predicament of the U.S. investor/taxpayer today, after the departure of Bush 43....$800 BILLION DOLLARS is missing from the till. The only thing to do is count the number of Bushes who stand to gain, again. And you are just getting your pitchfork out now????
Submitted by William W. Wexler (not verified) on Mon Feb. 2, 2009 3:51 AM PST.
The problem was stated very early in the video clip but nobody seems to "get" it.
The problem is that our Congress never creates a bill that addresses a single issue. They always create massive pieces of legislation that include pet provisions of persons like Gramm (and all the rest) who horse-trade their votes so they can get laws passed that shouldn't be passed.
This system of legislating has been devolving over the last 230 or so years and has now reached the point where Congress rarely does the People's business without sneaking in a few provisions to line the pockets of their friends, their "constituency", and/or themselves.
We spent the last 8 years listening to a litany of bullshit about "reforming" this, that, and the other. Now we have a new president who really DOES need to reform things. One thing Obama could do to reform things is to press for a rules change that would restrict the scope of any piece of legislation to a single topic and side issues that can be proven to be related to that topic.
Of course there would have to be exceptions to that rule (such as the necessity to come up with omnibus budget bills). But those could be accounted for. Right now we have a free-for-all that is nothing like what the Founders envisioned. We get bills that are thousands of pages long that cover a myriad of unrelated topics and leave the public dazed and screwed.
-Wexler
Hold on a moment...the CFTC is to regulate commodities; ala soybeans, gold and currencies...swaps are not physical commodities; Phil was correct...the CFTC was not the place regulate investment vehicles...the SEC was.
Would you have the FDA regulate airplane travel?
David Corn, you and Mother Jones are two of America's greatest assets! Thank you for applying your amazing intellect and tenacity to issues that need to be brought out into the light. As long as you and Mother are on the job, America still has a chance to once again become a beacon of fairness, freedom and democracy. Give Mother Jones a hug from one of her biggest fans.
Old Phil is well known for his disturbing needs here in Texas. Just one example is his demanding that the local power company not run a super power line across his road on the 300 acreage he and his wife Wendy (an unindited co-conspirer at Enron)own in retirement. Instead Phil wanted the power company to put it away from his spread into and across one of the most pristene nature preserves in Texas called "Government Canyon." He asked U.S. Rep. Henry Bonilla, Sens. Kay Bailey Hutchison and John Cornyn, and Gov. Rick Perry to help save his private road. Fortunately the city of San Antonio and lots of freaked out enviornmentalist closed his little scheme down.
I would like to congratulate you on your efforts and honesty.
You did not mention the involvement of Christopher Cox, SEC Chairman and Paulson who also managed to deaden McDonald's management of the financial institutions granted "involuntary" measures to create the mortgage crisis. They should be brought up on charges of "treason."
Dave, I will return to the Phil Foreclosure topic as soon as I had a chance to check something out, but right now, I am wondering if you are also responsible for some rather penetrating articles on post-Communist/Cold War developments relating to Hungary. Alternatively, could that David Corn be your alter ego, or just the name sake? FYI: Until my recent retirement, I followed that country (& Poland) at the fudge factory, aka State Dept.
Is it not the case that one of the primary reasons for the passage of The Commodities Futures Act was to insure that individual state agencies (insurance commissioners, gaming commissions, etc.) would be estopped from enforcing state law in regard to these transactions? I submit that the following language had exactly that effect:
Section 117 (e)
RELATION TO OTHER LAW, DEPARTMENTS, OR AGENCIES-
...
`(2) This Act shall supersede and preempt the application of any State or local law that prohibits or regulates gaming or the operation of bucket shops (other than antifraud provisions of general applicability) in the case of
`(A) an electronic trading facility excluded under section 2(e) of this Act; and
`(B) an agreement, contract, or transaction that is excluded from this Act under section 2(c), 2(d), 2(f), or 2(g) of this Act or title IV of the Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000, or exempted under section 2(h) or 4(c) of this Act (regardless of whether any such agreement, contract, or transaction is otherwise subject to this Act).'.
The authors of the bill obviously recognized the danger these types of transactions posed.
My previous comment was in reference to Gramm's disregard for the entire state's welfare to prevent some power lines from crossing his property (300 acres) and demanding of state and federal legislators that it go across the street, through a pristine, environmentally protected nature preserve. The man really thinks he's God, I think. or at least that he's way above the law. He's about the most disgusting excuse for a cockroach I've ever seen.
I agree with you David and appreciate you for asking Gramm the hard questions of this swindler Phil. He was to blame for the legislation he stuck into the Bill on Swaps, and he and the rest of the Pugs who continually DE-regulated the financial industry [and the GD democratic congress who went along with the DE-regulation] need to be sent to prison for the remainder of their lives. Especially Phil for his lying mouth. I guess he wouldn't want to hear my WHINE, WHINE, AND WHINE SOME MORE directly to his face!
Thanks to Armynda's comment above letting us know he is still scheming. I'm THRILLED the City of San Antonio and the enviornmentalists didn't let him get away with his 'private road' scheme. What a LOSER!
I often wonder if McCain still talks to his good buddy Phil in secret and I bet he does. I still watch the video of McCain stating that he believes whole heartedly in deregulation and my blood boils every time I look at it. I'm beyond anger; I AM LIVID!
Right On, David Corn; you have a point about Phil Grahms' unfulfilled responsibility to have done something about this mechanism before we got to where we are now, but - oddly, almost sickeningly - I find myself agreeing with Grahms point about it being an 'Ag Bill', as I grew up in an 'Ag State'; though, on the other hand, my Grandfather - the farmer, who was the last man in his County to give up his manure spreader, and thus was one of the few people to make it through the Dust Bowl O.K. because of that fact - hated Subsidies, and viewed commodities futures as part of that problem - as they often encouraged the kind of overproduction that led to grain rotting on the ground, at the taxpayers expense!
Still; if the constituency demands, the the politician is likely to deliver; and though we have people like Grahm to thank for the lackadaisical approach to regulation of the Financial Industry, we also have only our fellow consumers to blame for taking out mortgages that they must have known they could not afford to pay off!
Now, like that roting grain - which had, no doubt, been sold at a 'futures' detaermined price, long before it was even planted - We The People will be picking up the Tab for our Fellow Americans blind greed and stupidity.
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