William Clinton's lies

[Willie Escalade]

Oh, wait...there aren't many!

http://www.classwarfareexists.com/npr-most-facts-check-out-in-bill-clintons-speech-bloomberg-no-false-claims/#ixzz25k7tyEe5

[hippifried]

WHEW!!!
For a second there Willie, I thought you might have caught "knee" disease.

[Stavros]

In spite of giving an eloquent, witty speech, Mr Clinton as expected replayed his successes (minus the Israel-Palestine treaty) and conveniently forgot his errors: he did not own up to his role in the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act, or the promotion of 'two strikes and you're out' as a just response to repeat offenders -some of whom -many of whom?- can no longer vote in some states...he wasn't perfect, neither then nor now.

[hippifried]

It's 3 strikes.

& of course he's not going to do mea culpas in his convention speech. WTF?

[Stavros]

It's 3 strikes.

& of course he's not going to do mea culpas in his convention speech. WTF?

Ooops!

[yodajazz]

In spite of giving an eloquent, witty speech, Mr Clinton as expected replayed his successes (minus the Israel-Palestine treaty) and conveniently forgot his errors: he did not own up to his role in the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act, or the promotion of 'two strikes and you're out' as a just response to repeat offenders -some of whom -many of whom?- can no longer vote in some states...he wasn't perfect, neither then nor now.

The "Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act", which repeal provisions of the earlier act passed unanimously in 1999. So Clinton would not have been able to veto it, even if he wanted to. But from what I have read, the Graham, etc act was placed at the end of a 1,200 appropiation bill submitted like tow days before Congress's Christmas break. The implication was that it was slipped in, where not a lot of Congress people understood what was happening.

[Stavros]

Congress had been debating financial deregulation for decades, it was not a new topic -Clinton did not veto Gramm-Leach-Biley because he didn't want to, because he suppported its provisions as did his closest advisors -Robert Rubin and Alan Greenspan for example. Clinton also supported the 1995 Community Reinvestment Act which made home loans from banks accessible to low-income neighbourhoods, while Gramm's 2000 Commodity Futures Modernisation Act exempted credit default swaps from regulation.

It was part of the combination of economic growth and financial deregulation that was common at the time and which was credited with the 'feel-good' factor of the 1990s, and as the link also points out, lifted restriction in the USA that were not in place in Europe. Whether or not it is 'Clinton's fault' that the banking sector almost collapsed in 2008 is still a matter of conjecture, as is the role played by derivatives, but one cannot argue that Clinton acted as if he had no choice in 1999 -he made an informed choice, as did those Democrats and Republicans who voted for change.

cf
http://gaanderson.hubpages.com/hub/Republicans-Repealed-Glass-Steagall-Economic-Crisis-Results