I am writing today to announce the closure of the New Mexico Independent. After three and a half years of operation in New Mexico, the board of the American Independent News Network, has decided to shift publication of its news…
While environmental activists played their part yesterday during demonstrations at the capitol building, going so far as to dress up as solar panels and to sing the tune of “You Are My Sunshine,” their counterparts, the anti-cap-and-trade contingency who has…
Roughly one quarter of University of New Mexico students are unimpressed with the state’s flagship public school, according to a survey that questioned college students about their higher education experiences.
During an appearance on The View yesterday, Bill Clinton gave a concise explanation for the economic crisis our nation is currently suffering: We basically made too much money out of money, essentially wild crazy risk taking unaccountability has led us to this.
He then defended his presidential administration from charges that banking deregulation he signed into law in 1999 contributed to the current economic crisis.
The deregulation in question was the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act, a Great Depression era law that separated investment and commercial banking. Repeal of the Act allowed commercial banks to own other sorts of financial institutions as well, including investment banks.
The repeal of the law was a Republican congressional initiative that was presented to Clinton with a veto proof majority.
He said the repeal was good because it allows investment banks like Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley to do what they did a few days ago — file to become commercial banks and become subject to greater regulation. And he was happy to take credit for the repeal, saying it was a legal change he made.
What it means,” he said, ” is that they become more like a bank and can’t do these funny derivatives where they don’t have to be transparent about what they’re buying, [they can take] unlimited risks, [and now] they have to have capital. Their investments will be more solid. That’s one thing that was permitted by the legal change I made.
Then, he blamed the economic mess we’re in directly on Congress, saying no one in Congress wanted to reign in derivatives, much less Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac, during his tenure.
We tried to do that [reign in Freddie and Fannie], but as soon as it got to Capitol Hill we had both Democrats and Republicans all over us because they [Freddie and Fannie] had so much political money to give out. That was a mess. It’s an embarrassment to America and I’m glad we got it fixed.
He wrapped up his comments about the economic crisis by saying he supported the efforts of Bernanke and Paulson to bail out Wall Street, but it isn’t enough. There has to be help also for “Main Street” he said, doing something about the underlying mortgage debt that individual Americans are struggling with.
