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Bill Clinton’s Legacy of Denial
Does Bill Clinton still not grasp that the current economic crisis is in large measure his legacy? Obviously that’s the case, or he wouldn’t have had the temerity to write a 14-point memo for Newsweek on how to fix the economy that never once refers to the home mortgage collapse and other manifestations of Wall Street greed that he enabled as president.
Endorsing the Republican agenda of financial industry deregulation, reversing New Deal safeguards, President Clinton pursued policies that in the long run created more damage to the American economy than any other president since Herbert Hoover, whose tenure is linked to the Great Depression. Now, in his Newsweek piece, Clinton has the effrontery to once again revive his 1992 campaign mantra, “It’s the economy, stupid,” as the article’s title without any sense of irony, let alone accountability. But that has always been the man’s special gift—to rise above, and indeed benefit from, the messes he created.
His list of safe nostrums—painting tar-surface roofs white and seeking more efficient solar and battery production—to be featured at his lavishly funded Clinton Global Initiative conference in Chicago next week is vintage Clinton hype. All of those solutions are of the win/win sort that he loved to ballyhoo as president; who in his or her right mind would be against green job creation? But that hardly speaks to a crisis in which, as was reported Tuesday, the housing meltdown continues unabated as the toxic mortgages sold and packaged by the leading banks and investment houses clog the real estate market, destroying consumer confidence and hobbling job creation.
Conceding that the bailed-out banks are sitting on $2 trillion that they won’t lend, Clinton offers not a word about mortgage relief for swindled homeowners. With an all-time high of 44 million Americans living below the poverty line, Clinton once again brags of his success in ending the federal welfare program.
There is only a one-sentence reference in the Clinton article to the era of financial greed: “The real thing that has killed us in the last 10 years is that too much of our dealmaking creativity has been devoted to expanding the financial sector in ways that don’t create new businesses and more jobs and to persuading people to take on excessive debt loads to make up for the fact that their incomes are stagnant.” Now that’s a clear description of the consequence of President Clinton’s policy of radical deregulation of the financial industry, but he writes as if that outcome has nothing to do with him.
Clinton signed off on the reversal of the Glass-Steagall Act, the legislative jewel of the Franklin Roosevelt administration designed to prevent financial institutions from getting too big to fail. In signing the Financial Services Modernization Act, which broke down the barrier between high-rolling Wall Street investment firms and consumer banks carrying the deposits of ordinary folk, Clinton gushed in 1999, “Over the [past] seven years we have tried to modernize the economy. … And today what we are doing is modernizing the financial services industry, tearing down those antiquated laws and granting banks significant new authority.”
The first beneficiary of that legislation was Citigroup, a corporation that resulted from a merger that would have been banned by Glass-Steagall. Upon signing the law, Clinton handed one of the pens he used to a beaming Sandy Weill, Citigroup CEO and a close friend and financial supporter of the president. Clinton’s treasury secretary, Robert Rubin, then went off to be a $15-million-a-year exec at Citigroup and was in a key position there when the bank made those toxic derivative packages that would have forced it into bankruptcy had U.S. taxpayers not bailed the bank out.
So much for the “modernizing” that Clinton had bragged about.
A year later a variation of that same word appeared in the title of the Commodity Futures Modernization Act, which Clinton signed and which exempted from government regulation all of the collateralized debt obligations and credit default swaps that would later prove so toxic. That legislation led to the explosion of the market in unregulated mortgage-based securities, the key source of the financial-sector “dealmaking” that Clinton now bemoans.
In his memoir Clinton pays tribute to Rubin as “the best and most important treasury secretary since Alexander Hamilton.” He wrote that line in 2004, when Rubin, who had come to Clinton from a top job at Goldman Sachs and later left for Citigroup, was already clearly defined as someone who profited mightily from the very bills that he had pushed through while working for Clinton.
As with so much in the Clinton record, the former president remains in deep denial over having any culpability for his misdeeds. In his thousand-page memoir there is no reference to the above-mentioned radical deregulation of the economy that he presided over. As evidenced by his Newsweek article, the man has long been convinced that there is no problem or contradiction of his that cannot be simply plastered over with blather. Sadly, he may be right.
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51 Comments so far
Show AllHe wasn't the only one that got a blow job. So did the rest of us. From him. He and his warmongering wife are hideous.
Great article.
largely agree with ya joe except we did not get a blowjob from clinton - we got cornholed
google "bill clinton and suicide" see what you find
http://www.zpub.com/un/un-bc-body.html
lots of dead bodies, including teenagers and "best friends"
clinton is a psychopath as is his wife and most of the rest of american politicians
neither of them have souls
ghouls often don't.........
Don't you think that possessing a psychopathic personality is a pre-requisite for high office? And if they are truly psycopaths, isn't it our job to get them out of the way before they do even more damage? Remember, they don't have the capacity to help themselves.
good question
interesting thing about psychopaths is that the science is relatively new and strategies to deal with them are not developed
every gene pool produces 6% of psychopaths and they tend to work as ceo's or politicians, most have a mask of sanity
THE PSYCHOPATH - The Mask of Sanity
http://www.cassiopaea.com/cassiopaea/psychopath.htm
I'm sorry, but I had to laugh when you wrote "the science is relatively new and strategies to deal with them are not developed" in reference to psychopathy.
First of all, take a look at psychiatry, take a good look. There is no "science" to psychiatry; only judgments from people with very skewed senses of normalcy, ever defining that word in narrower and narrower terms in order to increase their profits. Take a look at the long-time leader of the APA, Ewan Cameron, and his work with the CIA, or pscyhiatry's hand in torture to this day. Or look in more mundane places, where your local psychiatrist is destroying small children with neuroleptics and speed without a shade of hesitation, and tell me psychiatry is not in itself a psychopathic institution.
The idea that the study of psychopathy is "relatively new" also elicits a giggle. Psychiatrists are not truly concerned wth treating any disorder which maximizes an individual's rise to wealth and power. If they did, they'd know you can use neuroleptics to muddy the mind, and would have been doing so long ago.
"An individual's rise to wealth and power"----Is that what these modern shamans really promise? I thought it was health and happiness they were selling. Christ, am I dated.
Enough psychiatrist-bashing here. For suicidal people with bipolar disorder, properly prescribed meds can literally be life savers!
As a victim of psychiatry myself, and having known many people who committed suicide under psychiatric care and others who have been reduced to a wretched state of chronic illness and disability, I can't share your enthusiasm. If all you read is the psychiatric literature funded and often ghostwritten by Big Pharma, you get the idea that psychiatry is saving lives and has a vast body of expertise. Yes, in times of intense crisis, the short term use of pharmaceuticals may help. In the long term, the reality is much different.
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2011/jun/23/epidemic-mental-illness-why/
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2011/jul/14/illusions-of-psychiatry/
Psychiatry is pseudoscience, armed with drugs of dubious efficacy and dimly understood harm, aiding in the pacification of the populace. Any real benefits to real people are purely coincidental.
Excellent two-part articles by Angell, one of the great whistleblowers writing against Big Pharma. She very deftly summarizes the unasked questions and reveals psychiatry as the most unscientific and ethically-blind foolishness.
It would be nice to get rid of them. Hell, nice isn't the right word? But how? I agree that most of the congress whores have to be psycopaths. How else can you explain them watching people die from no healthcare, get kicked out of houses, watching the unemployment numbers sky rocket and most of all, providing money to murderous companies that destroy the earth from pollution and murdering innocent people and animals from BP in the Gulf to defense companies bombing the hell out of women and kids across the pond, and not give a damn?
Soon it will happen here. More then it already is.
Then you are truly a sick f-ck if you believe she is sexy. She and her thinking has a lot of blood on her sexy hands
I see you all over this site demeaning people. So just go away again. You were probably another name until we got rid of you. why can't you admit the US is the biggest terrorist in the world? Or do you get off seeing people suffer. Or parents holding their dead kids which we just killed?
lol yes indeed, there IS "something to be said" for those types of people. They are called dictators. Forcing their power-hungry ideals onto the powerless who have no choice but to bend over and take it.
I won't bother responding to any more of your posts, Ares, as you are quite obviously either a paid troll of the right-wing Rethuglican Plutocracy/MIC, or else a seriously deluded individual, or both. In any event, there is a place in Hell for people such as yourself. I smile knowing that you will be writhing in agony for all eternity after the world is rid of you, and those like you. Thank God for karma.
"As with so much in the Clinton record, the former president remains in deep denial over having any culpability for his misdeeds."
"Deep denial" is kind. I'd suggest it's more like Narcissistic Personality Disorder, or outright sociopathy.
I'd have to side with you on this one, corvo.
me too
Alexander Hamilton whom Slick Willy pays tribute to was among Thomas Jefferson's least favorite of the founding fathers-- makes since that this president from whom I'm alegedly descended from illegitimately would have a low regard for such as Hamilton who was always the favorite of the big banking crowd in his day.
Mr. Scheer is far too kind in his assessment of Mr. Clinton and his pernicious effects. The man did far more damage to the poor and middle class than any Republican could have managed, for he brought the Democrats along for free on his reverse Robin-Hood spree. Bush and Obama merely have continued and extended the misery, wars, and massive theft that Mr. Clinton masterminded.
Agreed. Clinton was also lucky in that he ended his Presidency before his policies of middle class genocide reached full fruition. I get sick and tired of hearing of how wonderful the economy was under Clinton. Yes, he helped create a speculative bubble in Finance and real estate, then got out while the going was good.
Kind of like an arsonist setting a fire and splitting.
And like 98% of politicians now, he and Shrillary have also profited quite well thank you, from their years of "public service".
And don't forget the free trade agreements, NAFTA and GATT/WTO, that Clinton pushed through against his own party. These agreements have shipped millions (actually 10s of millions when the multiplier effect is accounted for) of jobs offshore, decimating our manufacturing and technology base. Clinton did way more damage than Bush Sr. ever could have ever gotten away with. The guy's a nuke.
Agreed. Clinton was also lucky in that he ended his Presidency before his policies of middle class genocide reached full fruition. I get sick and tired of hearing of how wonderful the economy was under Clinton. Yes, he helped create a speculative bubble in Finance and real estate, then got out while the going was good.
Kind of like an arsonist setting a fire and splitting.
And like 98% of politicians now, he and Shrillary have also profited quite well thank you, from their years of "public service".
Clinton's Republican economic policies have caused US a lot of problems as Scheer points out. To Clinton's credit, he collected taxes form the wealthy and did not allow his crony friends to drain our treasury with war spending.
Without a doubt, President Bubba's enacting of financial deregulation (along with NAFTA & the Telecommunications Act of 1998) has enabled 'The Great Lurch Backwards' to a modern redux of the Robber Baron era without the manufacturing base that the USA is on the verge of. Clinton's 'legacy' will be one of helping bring about a corporate feudal state that would have made Ayn Rand wet in her special place.
Scheer, congratulations for getting it. I know, some dumbo will look at this article and call him and/or this site a "Republican" site to which I would tell them to shut up and read and learn to accept the fact that Nader knew damn well that there's not a dime's worth of a difference between the two parties. Like millions, I was dumb enough in the 90s to expect anything liberal from Clinton but I was younger and getting out of being a then Reagan fan. By now, I should be calling Obama Bill Clinton v2.0 but I think Bush 2 v1.5 is more like it !
I like Robert Scheer. But sadly, he is somewhat the anti-Clintonite--a common disease amongst my fellow progressives--and this affliction deprives him of his usual good sense when discussing the Clinton record.
Re Glass-Steagall: Clinton actually opposed repeal of Glass-Steagall. He signed the bill because it passed by a veto-proof majority. It seems distinctly unfair to blame Clinton for Congress' screw-up.
Scheer also forgets that Clinton presided over the longest sustained period of economic growth in U.S. history, with lowered poverty rates and higher income at all sides. We were also paying off the deficit, suggesting it was not just a bubble.
All in all, Bill Clinton has more right than anyone in the world to talk about making an economy work--certainly more than Mr. Scheer.
If the Glass-Steagall repeal passed by a veto-proof majority, then Clinton DIDN"T NEED TO SIGN IT.
And yes, Clinton rode a bubble. A huge bubble, big enough to allow him to make some payment on the deficit.
So really, his kinder, gentler Reaganomics hardly impresses in retrospect.
Well if Clinton did not approve of the repeal, why was he gushing so over signing it? Why does he brag about it?
False claim by you, it what it sounds like. A Clinton apologist.
Perry logan, I'm persuaded by your critics. But there was one good thing about the Clinton presidency: he didn't pad the bloated purses of the rich by reducing their taxes. Income tax rates were reasonable, and if we had them now, this "debt crisis" wouldn't be with us.
According to Wikipedia, Clinton fought tax cuts advocated by Republicans on the ground that they would favor the wealthy and weaken economic growth. Clinton supported expanding the Earned Income Tax Credit, raising taxes on the wealthiest 1.2% of taxpayers, cutting taxes on 15 million low-income families, and extending tax cuts to 90% of small businesses. The only negative I can find on taxes is his 1997 agreement with Republicans to reduce capital gain and estate taxes. Overall, his record on taxes seems vastly superior to Obama's.
Nixon Liar Reelected. Reagan Liar Reelected. Clinton Liar Reelected. G W Bush Liar Reelected. Obama Liar Reelected??? If you voted to reelected any of these Liars you are part of the problem, It's your fault. Just how bad does it have to get before we as a country come to understand that the Democratic or the Republican party have no ability to solve any of this countries problems. A ship of fools with no moral compass lost in the sea of denial and apathy.
I wonder what you think we can do about it? Vote 3rd party? Not a chance TPTB will let them win. Stay home? Instead of just slamming us, put some ideas out there. The votes are rigged with the voting machines anyway. Even is we all stayed home, they would declare a winner. And Bush was not reelected. They stole the election.
It is NOT my fault that the elites are screwing the world. Most of the civilized people in the world have protested, called, signed petitions ect, and they don't fucking care. It isn't my fault the banks stole all the money. It was Congress. Quit blaming the little people who have no power.
And when it does get bad enough that the people rise up, they will stomp us into the grounf. Look what happens when people do protest here in this country. The police beat and arrest them.
I think you guys are crazy.
You know that I think all (and I do mean all) politicians are corrupt and will not look after the people's interest, but with that said Bill Clinton and Ronald Reagan were the best economic Presidents during my 44 year lifetime.
LBJ, George W Bush, and Barack Obama were the worst.
By the end of the Clinton administration federal government spending was down to slightly over 18% GDP, we were running a surplus (thanks to SS funds going into the general treasury), the economy was screaming, unemployment was low, citizens were getting multiple offers for their labor and for their house.
Clinton (for the most part) kept us out of armed conflict.
The Bubba and Ronnie Administrations had us going in the right direction. W and Barack took a populist turn and sent our economy over the cliff.
Good Morning,
Not surprisingly the lunacy I supposendly spout disagrees with CD readers when it comes to economic policy.
To me economic free trade is a positive thing. Through out history the trading nations support the best standard of living for their citizens, when comparing them to the trade isolationist countries. The citizens of trade isolationist countries have a consistently lower standard of living.
Corporate welfare is an awful thing, subsidizing corporations or a section of the economy to give it a leg up should be hated by the citizens at large. It is taxing your citizens so that business is given a leg up (crony capitalism).
That principle is the same when others do it. Citizens of poorer countries should be appalled that they are being taxed so that wealthy Americans buy their products more cheaply.
On a different note that we all don't like; the truth the true left progressives, and the true right libertarians have to accept is that the two major US political parties have set up the rules so that no third party has a chance. Most of CD is not happy with the left party (Dems) just as most libertarians are not at all happy with the right party (Repubs). But I think we all have a better chance of hitting a 200 million dollar lottery then we do of seeing a third party rival their dominance with the rules they have set in place. To the monopoly they have set up, I don't have a good answer.
You are the crazy one.
Maybe unemployment was low during the Clinton years, but the policies he put in action then has caused it to skyrocket now..NAFTA, the banking scandels are all on him thru his actions. Clinton didn't keep us out of armed conflicts. You do remember Somalia? How about Clinton gutting Medicare and allowing more people to starve?
Now for St Ronnie the Asshole, does the Iran-Contra affair ring any bells? No? How about closing mental health facilities and putting all those people on the streets with no help?
How about not addressing the AIDS crisis with education instead of god mongering? Your memory is very selective.
But you are right about W and Obama. With the help of the corrupt Congress and SCOTU.
Wow. You're insane. Congratulations. .... but really your comment was satire, right? Right? ...
.
Raygun presided over the greatest percentage of debt increase in American history, greater even than Bush II or Oblahblah. He raised taxes on the middle and working classes at least 7 times ... and handed over the cash to his friends, collaborators, and bosses in the wealthy elite class. Supply side voodoo "economics" coupled with the extortionate plunder, which continues unabated to this day.
.
Clinton slowed to the rate that the debt accumulated (relative to Raygun), but he did not create any surplus. That's an absurd myth. There was no Clinton surplus. He was an enemy of the middle and working classes.
.
W and Oblahblah are "populists"? That just might be the dumbest thing I have ever read on this website. Completely ludicrous. You're an Orwellian debasing the meaning of the words. War is Peace, Freedom is Slavery, W and Oblahblah are populists.
Thank you Robert Scheer!!!
Indeed, Clinton serves the exact same masters as do the Bushes, and it is NOT the american people or justice.
This is the same Clinton who before the Haiti earthquake promoted that poor country as America's sweatshop. After the earthquake he worked to ensure that at least 80% of the relief money pledged would go to American companies. The man is all heart.
HATE NAFTA-HATE the repeal of Glass-Steigel-Hate most of Clinton's Policies!
Clinton was the one who completely diminished our ability to get real info to the average Joe with his murderous chop to the Telecommunications Bill!
Maybe he just liked that it said Bill?
Asshole!
Barbara Bush calls Bill Clinton "son". That's all you need to know.
Here's Clinton on Poppy --
Clinton: "I think we're good friends. I like him very much. I've always liked him. When he was vice president, I was still a governor. We worked together on a number of things. (cough, drug smuggling in Mena, murder of children). He hosted the governors, in 1983...at Kennebunkport."
The spectacle of Bush and Clinton trying to raise money for Haiti was one of the most nauseating displays I've ever seen. Both men are psychopaths and have no shame. Both should be locked up in padded cells for the rest of their miserable lives.
I'm not sure if the story was posted here but Obama enjoyed a round of golf with John Boehner last week. If you haven't figured it out yet, republicans and democrats are on the same team. You're on the other. As George Carlin said, "It's a big club, and you ain't in it". It's all theater.
Revolution is the only solution.
Great post worded so well. Not only right on the mark but very entertaining.
Was it the peace or the prosperity?
Hating Clinton- sells well here.
Sheer's template for success:
Just Blame Bill
Robert Scheer
October 11, 2006 | This article appeared in the October 23, 2006 edition of The Nation.
Thank you Joecool9 Liberty1 Chupacabra Aresgodofwar Mauimon and others. Conversations have no winners or losers, the point is an exchange of ideals, a chance to learn and grow. I would like to hear more thoughts on my main point please. For well over one hundred years our political reality has been dominated by a two party system Democrats vs Republicans. It is my contention that this system is a proven failure. That it is time for a major overhaul of the American political system. This system has led us into one crisis after another since the Civil War. Our government has become unhinged from reality. The litany of senseless counterproductive destructive idiotic things our government does to us, for us, and in our name is so overwhelming in it's scope and breath that defies description. What do we do about it? Party members resign. That's right resign. We need new blood. New parties. Young people step up, grab control before it's to late. The folks older than you have gone insane. Act before it's to late
The more obvious solution to the non-functioning Congress and Administration is to scrap the whole idea and bring back a monarchy. How about inviting Will and Kate to sojourn here for a decade, just to start us off on the right foot? Or perhaps we could invite Prince Maurits from the Netherlands (we made a serious error in kicking out the Dutch monarchy in 1655).
A fellow anarchist of mine recently reminded me that " a lot of these people are not just lying, they actually believe what they say". and you know it's true. You can't speak truth to people that have climbed the ladder of narcissism, and the bridge to no ethical center whatsoever.
You just have to declare war. And the only time 'they' declare it class war, is when we fight back. Well there ya go.
Clinton's comments about 'free trade' upon Haiti were equally mind boggling.
Unless you realize, that many of these people are just psychopaths.
Remember the Iraqi sanctions? Him and HIlary...and Gore.
damn. And now Gore is criticizing Obama about global warming? Gore, the war hawk (how much does the USA military contribute? one of the biggest single sources. How much does agribusiness contribute...etc...all Gore doners..)
You can't get more farce then factual day to day cynical crap from our political system. I wish I could come up with some Mark Twain wit. But all this shit is really fucking serious. And one million Iraqis are dead. And we have the USA citizens running around like chickens blaming themselves....not a corrupt corporatist economic system. Damn.
we are still relatively free here. Why are we not organzing against the rich?
is the red scare crap so engrained in us? what's the matter with demanding the impossible?
""His list of safe nostrums—painting tar-surface roofs white and seeking more efficient solar and battery production—to be featured at his lavishly funded Clinton Global Initiative conference in Chicago next week is vintage Clinton hype.""
***********************************
The best hope is that only slick willie will show up. But there most likely will be a few, especially those who benefitted magnificently by slick willie's 'legislative signatures', in other words the criminals who paid slick willie to get those bills shoved through congress and signed PDQ.
Since slick willie is SICK history now, why and how does congress just sit on their collective asses and not repeal those laws, or write new ones? I'll tell you, they are all being lobbied NOT TO UNDO those laws and by lobbied, I MEAN BRIBED!
From slick dick nix to slick willie, to the dwarf with all hat and no cattle, to the mulatto in chief whose actions have totally contradicted his 2008 campaign, they are all pieces of shit and not worthy of any kind word or recognition at all.
Wow. That bill clinton and suicide is quite something. I know it old slick willie came to my house, he'd be on the ground with his first step into my yard. He is a threat to everyone's life.
w is the same. Lot of strange deaths in that crime family also:
http://www.georgewalkerbush.net/bushdeathlist.htm
Well said samosamo. Nixon = Liar Clinton = liar Obama = liar
clinton was first demo-republican in usa , but severe housing business was initiated by hud secretary kemp under reagan
The more you frustrated, jealous, fools attack Clinton, the more I admire him. He gave us the best presidency in this country, since FDR. The republicans are furious over Clinton's immense, unparralleled popularity and respect, in the U.S. and throughout the world. Clinton made mistakes like every president., but you single him out, because you envy him, and because he had it all. Women love him, he has a huge intellect, he had guts, he survived your petty, creepy bullshit impeachment. He worked himself to the bone for our country, and was always an idea man, as he is today. He was exonerated during his hate-driven, biased bullshit, make-believe impeachment, because the American people were behind him and supported him, while you republicans couldn't touch him. You're the liars, you're the sick ones. I honor Clinton. Only imbeciles pretend that a president is supposed to do everything right. Of course Clinton had an occassional erroneous policy, but, in general, he was an extraordinary president, and the fact that he was re-elected proves it. There has not been anything near his equal, since FDR.