Posted on 02/16/2009 10:17:50 AM PST by shielagolden
AUSTIN, Texas (CNN) -- Former President Bill Clinton was in Austin, Texas, over the weekend to host the Clinton Global Initiative University, which encourages college students and administrators to come up with creative ways to address global issues.
Former President Bill Clinton praises the Obama administration's handling of the stimulus bill. CNN's John Roberts sat down with Clinton to ask him about how the Obama administration is performing, how his wife, Hillary Clinton, is doing as secretary of state, and what responsibility he may have for the current financial crisis. John Roberts:
Mr. President, in terms of the overall economic downturn, Time magazine had an article out this week in which it named 25 of the people most responsible for the economic downturn, and you were there. They, they had a picture of you in what looked like a police lineup. They had a little button where you could vote who's the most responsible? They pointed to your signing of the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, the Commodity Futures Modernization Act.
(Excerpt) Read more at cnn.com ...
He is the first ex-Potus or Potus I have ever heard mention the term, “derivatives”.
“I screwed up, too.” (applause from liberals)
25 People to Blame for the Financial Crisis
http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1877351_1877350,00.html
I saw that, interesting list. I believe a UK paper made one, with more non-Americans on the list.
By the time these financial instruments were seen as a potential for collapse the ‘shark infested blood in the water feeding frenzy’ prevented anyone from stepping in.
As Greenspan said, “Everyone thought they were smart enough to know when to get out.”
Everything in moderation. However, human nature rarely responds to a ‘good thing’ in moderation.
The dodgy mortgages had their origins in the Community Reinvestment Act of 1977. However, this Act was basically benign until 1994, when Andrew Cuomo, Clinton's Secretary of HUD, rewrote the regulations of the Act and quite literally forced lenders to make these mortgage loans or suffer all sorts of undesirable consequences.
Banks and mortgage lenders, not being total idiots and certainly not wanting to hold this crappy paper, squizzled up stacks of these rotten loans into big packages and sold them off as derivative instruments.
Net bottom line? The derivatives problem which instituted the real estate/liquidity bubble-then-crash was caused by none other than Clinton himself.
Yah, Blythe Billy, you shoulda ''regulated'' derivatives more closely.
Hypocritical jackass.
Exactly how is a President constitutionally empowered to regulate?
What a waste of my time this was to read. Clinton...I should have known better than to waste the time, BUT he in essence does (reading between the lines) confirm what I have posted in the past about derivatives to those whom seem focused on that as being the problem.
It wasn’t as Clinton intimates in this article. HE gave the wink and nod to the use of derivatives throughout his tenure. The derivatives however were a tool. The problem was, is lending to people whom couldn’t pay back the loans any way, shape, or form.
Leftist Government messing with the good sense practices (traditions) of the system for the sole purpose of accumulation of voters is the basis of the problem we face today.
Bill’s always been a pro at confessin’, a skill learned through years of cheating on his wife.
Interesting that CDO’s have been mentioned more than usual the last few days.
Interesting how the economic downturn is often referred to in the past tense.
Prepare for a default in the synthetic derivative market, inversion of treasury bond rates and a simultaneous collapse of the dollar/equity markets.
Probable scenario by the 26th is S&P 650, US dollar index at 76 and gold at 1,044...
I don’t believe Slick Willy’s any sorrier for the damage he caused his country than he was about schtupping the help in the Oval Office.
Mark
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