Elizabeth Warren
Related: About this forumSenator Warren, encouraged by vote, says time to end subsidies for 'too big to fail' banks
Buoyed by a nonbinding U.S. Senate vote to eliminate billions in subsidies for "too big to fail" banks, Massachusetts Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren called the measure a step toward "leveling the playing field" between megabanks and their smaller competitors and customers.
The Senate, in a unanimous 99-0 vote Friday, passed the measure to eliminate the subsidies that big banks receive through lower borrowing costs because of the "implicit guarantee they will be bailed out by the government in a time of crisis," Warren said Sunday.
The Senate pulled an all-nighter Friday, passing its first budget in four years and voting on more than 50 amendments –including paycheck fairness for women and assistance for the beleaguered New England fishing industry. "It was an action-packed night," Warren said.
Even though the banking measure, sponsored by Ohio Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown and Louisiana Republican Sen. David Vitter, was not binding, it's an "important step forward," Warren said. "I'm glad that Republicans and Democrats can agree: 'Too big to fail' needs to end, and these big-bank subsidies make no sense."
More: http://www.masslive.com/politics/index.ssf/2013/03/senator_elizabeth_warren_says_1.html#incart_river
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dkf
(37,305 posts)Everything is optics over substance. They might as well have named a post office.
JDPriestly
(57,936 posts)banking havens everywhere and to the wealth that is sitting in them like so much body fat on the morbidly obese -- never being used for anything productive.
I think we are reaching a point at which enough people can see that the imbalance in our economy is harming us -- stifling the very creativity and innovation that capitalism is supposed to foster.
So, everything depends on how many people can be brought to view things not necessarily my way but in a balanced way -- to understand that economics is a matter of interaction and flow and not of having and keeping.
More and more people are beginning to understand this thanks to the internet and our ability to crunch numbers and look at our neighbors and at strangers almost at the same time. So I am optimistic that something better, more effective than Dodd-Frank can come about.
Something a lot less wedded to the status quo.
only made it easier to spot... it did little to provide tools to deal with it. Granted, it should have been dealt with quite some time ago, but at least we seem to have the political will to deal with now... which is better than not at all.
dkf
(37,305 posts)Veilex
(1,555 posts)Always compare the product to the advertised bill of goods... or in this case, just the bill.
dkf
(37,305 posts)Veilex
(1,555 posts)that it is Welfare for Insurance providers. Could even be considered a subsidy. Don't get me wrong, there are things I do like about it, but not enough to make me happy with it.
judesedit
(4,509 posts)Veilex
(1,555 posts)They want to see if political will exists to actually get everything passed. I suspect a non-binding vote may be cheaper in the long run as well as it may avoid some political battles... which always seem to create congestion for any other issues that need attention.
Scuba
(53,475 posts)UnrepentantLiberal
(11,700 posts)
ReRe
(10,737 posts)... or lip service. Nothing concrete. Nothing that sticks. 
dotymed
(5,610 posts)at least it is getting the senators (R&D) to admit that these "too big to fail" subsidies are wrong..
JDPriestly
(57,936 posts)ReRe
(10,737 posts)... I'm just old and impatient. It seems like it's hurry up and wait, hurry up and wait. Declaration of intent is better than crickets.
OnyxCollie
(9,958 posts)Six years of rocking the boat? No way, no how.
Toss her some crumbs, there's work to be done.
setab
(8 posts)The problem with ending "too big to fail" allows the "free market" to win. There needs to be a different answer on this one. We get some central economic planning under the current regime in banking.
If we stop bailing out the banks, that eventually means we may have to stop supporting companies like GM and Chrysler, who would have disappeared without help. Trickle that all the way down to something like the SBA, where government allows small businesses to take risks they normally wouldn't...
UnrepentantLiberal
(11,700 posts)
Volaris
(10,594 posts)Making sure that Treasury Dept. can prop up the economy of the rest of us, in case (and what I REALLY mean here, is WHEN) Wall Street fucks up THEIR economy again and banks start failing. Part of that means, building a non-competitive (with BANKS), Not-For-Profit National Credit Union that's run out of the Treasury with at least one branch office in each state, that can make funds available to everyday people in time of need. Since Treasury can mint all the coin it wants, just start with a Billion dollar coin, loan that money out to people (at this point in history, I would be writing simple-interest Home Loans), and when you collect it back, you are running a zero-sum economy: I.E., no one made a dime off the fact that American Cedit and Currency was used to benefit American Borowers, and that prole that works 80 hours a week across three jobs got his damn house paid off, and now has something of REAL VALUE to show for his work ethic.
Back that fucker with the Full Faith and Credit of the United States, and there will never be a major economic crash in this country again (that fucks WORKING PEOPLE out of what they have actually worked for.) Not to to mention, you could charge an extra 5% on all the Simple Interest loans you would make, and shove that cash DIRECTLY into paying down the debt.
The Tea-Bagger types LOVELOVELOVE to bitch and scream that Wall Street should have been allowed to fail, and I think they are right. What no one has the balls to tells them, is that for that to actually EVER HAPPEN, you need a PUBLIC Sector robust enough to pick up the slack. We should start asking them:
"How much do you hate the "big banks"? Oh, not enough to re-establish a Government that can LET them fail? Well, in that case, fuck you, you get what you PAY FOR."
AndyA
(16,993 posts)They will have to compete for customers by providing good customer service, do away with frivolous fees, lower interest rates on credit cards and loans, and raise interest rates on deposits, savings, and CDs.
Basically, they'll really have to start doing what their advertising says they do now (but of course, they don't really care about customers because they don't have to.)
Let them compete fairly, and let them fail if they can't.
setab
(8 posts)That you are arguing FOR capitalism and FOR a "free market" solution, right?
Under your supposition, we don't provide for GM or Chrysler, don't fund green energy, lose the SBA, etc...
AndyA
(16,993 posts)It's the banks that want it both ways. No regulations, no oversight, yet they want the taxpayer to subsidize their profits, and bail them out when they create a disaster through their own greed.
setab
(8 posts)What is so free market about a bailout? That's taxpayer funds or printing more money to cover their mistakes. We do that for all sorts of other businesses. It's either that, and clamp down on them, or close them all and just use a central banking mechanism.
It almost winds up being the same thing.
JDPriestly
(57,936 posts)BlueStreak
(8,377 posts)It is an "implied" benefit. The banks are able to gain financial advantage over their smaller competitors simply because everybody assumes that the next time we get into meltdown mode, the taxpayers will bail out the "too big" banks again.
Please note that nearly half the Senators who voted in favor of this empty rhetoric have also blocked getting a real person in charge of the agency that would actually make that happen.
At least Dodd-Frank theoretically contains a funding measure that would spare the taxpayers the next time a bailout is needed. But the banksters keep gambling larger and larger amounts, so the D-F provisions would probably not help much in reality.
The only real answer is to make those banks live by the rules of capitalism. If they gamble and lose, let them die. And the problem with that, of course, is that they have INTENTIONALLY commingled the casino bets with ordinary deposits of individuals and honest businesses. The answer is as obvious today as it was 81 years ago. Simply reinstate Glass-Steagel.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glass%E2%80%93Steagall_Act
It isn't that complicated. Many people in high places in the finance industry have come around to that position already.
Make them split off the casino banks. And let the casinos, and the gamblers that give them money, fail.
Hell, you barely have to even change the language. 95% of what Glass and Steagel wrote in 1933 is still valid today.
dkf
(37,305 posts)There is more than one way a bank can fail. Countrywide wouldn't have been saved by Glass Steagall either.
BlueStreak
(8,377 posts)in large part due to the overturning of Glass-Steagal.
What point are you trying to make?
ReRe
(10,737 posts)Bring back Glss-Steagel, i.e. The Banking Act of 1933. Think about it... it was repealed in 1999, and in 2008 Wall Street was belly-up. Nine years is all it took. Add that mistake to 8 years of GWB administration, and here we are.
BlueStreak
(8,377 posts)Everybody should listen to this speech he gave in 1999.
http://billmoyers.com/content/a-senators-prophetic-words-then-and-now/
Only one Senator of courage, it seems.
Listening to that speech again, I find it really shocking that Sen Dorgan repeatedly asked whether this change was in the interest of the American consumer. He acknowledged that obviously it was in the interest of the banksters. But what about the average American?
It is shocking, not because he asked it. It was a great question -- exactly the question that should have been asked. What is shocking is that I cannot recall another time -- until Elizabeth Warren took office -- that any other Senator or Congressman has even asked that question. it is as if the public doesn't count for anything anymore. it is just assumed that corporations run everything, so why waste your breath even talking about the average American.
ReRe
(10,737 posts).... a Democrat from TX on the banking committee? I used to listen to him late at night in his one-hour speeches in the well of the House. He harped allot on the mergers/acquisitins, i.e. the monopolies, and against various banking laws that Congress was changing. I loved that man like a grandpa, and I wasn't even from Texas. I sure miss Henry. He is rolling in his grave saying "I told you so!"
OnyxCollie
(9,958 posts)Max Weber said this nearly a century ago:
Democratic mass parties are bureaucratically organized under the leadership of party officials, professional party and trade union secretaries, etc.... Of course, one must remember that the term 'democratization' can be misleading. The demos itself, in the sense of an inarticulate mass, never 'governs' larger associations; rather it is governed, and its existence only changes the way in which the executive leaders are selected and the measure of influence which the demos, or better, which social circles from its midst are able to exert upon the content and the direction of administration activities by supplementing what is called 'public opinion.' 'Democratization,' in the sense here intended, does not necessarily mean an increasingly active share of the governed in the authority of the social structure. This may be the result of democratization, but it is not necessarily the case.... The most decisive thing here- and indeed it is rather exclusively so- is the leveling of the governed in opposition to the ruling and bureaucratically articulated groups, which in turn may occupy a quite autocratic position, both in fact and form.
ReRe
(10,737 posts)...i.e. Max Weber. I don't know much about him. Name rings a bell. Will go look him up. Thanks!
iandhr
(6,852 posts)... I am too
blkmusclmachine
(16,149 posts)Will anything come of her words??? 