My income comes from three sources, Social Security, State Retirement
and the Department of Education. The source of my income has no
bearing on the fact that I am very pro social security, strongly in
favor of our state retirement program, and an advocate of the US
Department of Education.
Yes siree, if any of them did anything suspect I would be among the
first to call for an investigation, and if they were found to be
guilty, I'd advocate appropriate penalties, after all appeals were
exhausted.
Carl Jarvis
On 3/15/16, Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Published on Alternet (http://www.alternet.org)
Home > The Clintons' $93 Million Romance With Wall Street
________________________________________
The Clintons' $93 Million Romance With Wall Street
By Richard Behan [1] / AlterNet [2]
March 11, 2016
For 24 years Bill and Hillary Clinton have courted Wall Street money with
notable success. During that time the New York banks contributed:
. $11.17 million to Bill Clinton's presidential campaign in 1992.
. $28.37 million for his re-election in 1996.
. $2.13 million to Hillary Clinton's senatorial campaign in 2002.
. $6.02 million for her re-election in 2006.
. $14.61 million to Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign in 2008.
. $21.42 million to her 2016 campaign.
The total here is $83.72 million for the six campaigns,i [3] ii [4]
disbursed from 11 banks: Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, UBS, Bank of
America/Merrill Lynch, Wells Fargo, Barclay's, JP Morgan Chase, CIBC,
Credit
Suisse, Deutsche Bank, and Morgan Stanley.iii [5] iv [6]
Then there were the speeches. Sixteen days after leaving the White House in
2001, Mr. Clinton delivered a speech to Morgan Stanley, for which he was
paid $125,000. That was the first of many speeches to the New York banks.
Over the next 14 years, Mr. Clinton's Wall Street speaking engagements
earned him a total of $5,910,000:v [7]
. $1,550,000 from Goldman Sachs.
. $1,690,000 from UBS.
. $1,075,000 from Bank of America/Merrill Lynch.
. $770,000 from Deutsche Bank.
. $700,000 from Citigroup
After she resigned as Secretary of State in 2012, Hillary Clinton took to
the lecture circuit as well. Some of her income has come to light during
the
current presidential campaign, like the $675,000 she was paid for three
speeches to Goldman Sachs. That disclosure, however, belittles her
financial
achievement and the scope of her audiences. She also addressed the Bank of
America/Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley, Deutsche Bank, UBS, Ameriprise,
Apollo Management Holdings, CIBC, Fidelity Investments, and Golden Tree
Asset Management, earning another $2,265,000.vi [8]
No other political couple in modern history has enjoyed so much money
flowing to them from Wall Street for such a long time-$92.57 million over a
quarter century.
During a CNN forum on February 3, Anderson Cooper wondered if Goldman
Sachs'
$675,000 might impact her prospective presidential decisions. Defending her
integrity with undisguised indignation, she described her independence from
the banks:
Anybody who knows me, who thinks that they can influence me, name anything
they've influenced me on. Just name one thing. I'm out here every day
saying
I'm going to shut them down, I'm going after them. I'm going to jail them
if
they should be jailed. I'm going to break them up.vii [9]
Her campaign website confirms her fierce determination to oversee the banks
and hold them strictly to account. "Wall Street must work for Main Street,"
the website claims, outlining her program for "Wall Street Reform":
. Veto Republican efforts to repeal or weaken Dodd-Frank
. Tackle dangerous risks in the big banks and elsewhere in the
financial system.
. Hold both individuals and corporations accountable when they break
the law.viii [10]
$675,000 might be insufficient to elicit Ms. Clinton's sympathetic ear, but
a quarter century of accepting tens of millions of dollars is not so easily
dismissed. It might have some impact on the Clintons' sense of gratitude
and
certainly on their social, cultural and political environments.
Over that period of time, while one or the other held public office almost
continuously, the couple accumulated a net worth of $125 million.ix [11] x
[12] Measured by family wealth, this inserted the couple into the top 1% of
American families by a factor of 16 ($7.88 million is the threshold).
In New York, their home upon leaving the White House, the Clintons moved
easily among other multimillionaires, the celebrated, wealthy, and
accomplished people of the city, such as Lloyd Blankfein, Robert Rubin and
Henry Paulson, CEOs of the benefactor Wall Street banks. The couple could
scarcely avoid adopting the mindset and political perspectives of the
people
who now constituted their peer group.
Breaking up banks, jailing the lawless executives, forcing Wall Street to
work for Main Street: Hillary Clinton's stern proclamations of impartial
law
enforcement and strict regulation are difficult to take seriously.
Wall Street doesn't. One bank executive assured his clients, "We continue
to
believe Clinton would be one of the better candidates for financial firms."
He was quoted in a CNN Money article, "Wall Street Isn't Worried about
Hillary Clinton's Plan," which stated,
Hillary Clinton unveiled her big plan to curb the worst of Wall Street's
excesses. The reaction from the banking community was a shrug.xi [13]
There is good reason for the banks' sanguine view. Over the 24 years of the
romance, the Clintons first reoriented their political party, gave it a new
name, the New Democratic Party, and put it at Wall Street's service. Then
they engineered financial opportunities for the New York banks of immense
value, running into the hundreds of billions. And through the years as
president, senator and secretary of state, the Clintons supported Wall
Street's interests at every necessary turn.
In the early 1990s, chairing the Democratic Leadership Council, Bill
Clinton
ushered in the centrist, triangulating New Democratic Party, explicitly to
be more business-friendly and to attract the financial support of corporate
America. Wall Street supported his 1992 campaign handsomely, and Bill
Clinton became the first president under the new banner, with Hillary
Clinton at his side.
When he appointed Robert Rubin of Goldman Sachs as Secretary of the
Treasury
Department, Clinton established a precedent. For the next 24 years, every
administration would find Wall Street executives to serve in the position.
But the working families of America and the African-American and Hispanic
communities-the party's historic constituencies-were betrayed and
abandoned,
deprived of effective representation in Washington. The Clintons' political
campaigns over the next decades became monumental hypocrisies, Bill donning
sunglasses to play his saxophone for Arsenio Hall, Hillary visiting black
churches to hug the parishioners. They speak warmly to the traditional
constituencies with carefully scripted political rhetoric, currying their
favor, depending on them for electoral victory, but effectively obscuring
the truth of their betrayal.
On taking office Mr. Clinton announced, "The era of big government is
over."
On that cue he co-opted two issues long used by Republicans to mask their
party's racism: "welfare" and "crime." To address the issues, two laws were
passed in Clinton's first term that savaged the betrayed constituencies.
The first was the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity
Reconciliation Act, which fulfilled Clinton's promise to "end welfare as we
know it." Since the end of the Clinton administration, poverty in the U.S.
has nearly doubled: "...the number of Americans living in high-poverty
areas
rose to 13.8 million in 2013 from 7.2 million in 2000, with African
Americans and Latinos driving most of the gains."xii [14]
To show how tough on crime he could be, Clinton next guided the Violent
Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994 through Congress. A flurry of
prison construction quickly followed, an industry of private for-profit
prisons took hold and flourished, and a skyrocketing population mostly of
young black males soon filled them, most frequently charged with nonviolent
drug offenses.
Sixteen years later, the effects of the law were described by Michelle
Alexander in her searing book, The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the
Age of Colorblindness. Alexander well understands how the Clintons and
their
creation, the New Democratic Party, left working families and communities
of
color without a political voice. Her latest work is an article, "Black
Lives
Shattered," in the Feb. 29, 2016 issue of The Nation, in which she details
how the two Clinton laws have devastated African-American families and sent
millions to prison. In the article's caption, she asks, "The Clinton's
legacy has been the impoverishment of black America-so why are we still
voting for them?"
From the crime bill to welfare reform, policies Bill Clinton enacted-and
Hillary Clinton supported-decimated black America. Hillary Clinton now
apologizes for the laws, suggesting they are no longer quite so
appropriate.
But she has not, cannot and will not mention two other laws passed at the
bidding of President Clinton's Treasury Secretary, Robert Rubin. These laws
enriched the Wall Street banks by hundreds of billions of dollars, but they
too devastated working families, African Americans and Latinos.
The first was the Financial Services Modernization Act of 1999, repealing
the Glass-Steagall legislation of 1933. Now it was legal once more for
financial institutions to mix commercial and investment banking. Goldman
Sachs et al. could now use depositor's funds, insured by the Federal
Deposit
Insurance Corporation, to buy up "subprime" mortgages, the high-interest
debt obligations of typically low-income, black and Latino families.
The next law was the Commodity Futures Modernization Act. Now Goldman Sachs
et al. could transform packages of those subprime mortgages into
complicated
derivatives called mortgage-backed-obligations, have them fraudulently
rated
as AAA investments, and sell them around the world, without limit,
restriction or regulation, at immense profit.
For eight years the bubble inflated, and then it collapsed in the last year
of George Bush's administration. Real estate values plummeted. The stock
market was hammered. So was the U.S. economy. And so tragically were many
low-income, African American and Latino families. $13 trillion in household
wealth vaporized. Nine million workers lost their jobs. Five million
families were evicted from their homes.xiii [15]
This is what the Clinton administration, and the New Democratic Party, had
wrought. The banks were caught with hundreds of billions in mortgage-backed
derivatives still in the pipeline, the market values dropping like stones.
Wall Street's prospective losses were horrific; bankruptcies loomed. But
George Bush's Treasury Secretary was the obligatory Wall Streeter: Hank
Paulson, recently CEO of Goldman Sachs. In a heartbeat, Paulson rammed
through Congress the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008. It was
known as the Troubled Asset Relief Program, and it handed Paulson $700
billion of taxpayers' money to buy the near-worthless securities from the
banks.
Hillary Clinton, now the U.S. senator from New York, voted for the bill,
telling a New York radio station the next day, "I think the banks of New
York...are probably the biggest winners in this."xiv [16]
Paulson started buying, typically paying the banks half again the market
value of the "troubled assets."xv [17] But a presidential campaign was
underway, and soon he would have to stop.
Barack Obama, overcoming Hillary Clinton in the primaries, was elected as
the second president from the New Democratic Party. Obama's campaign
contributions from Wall Street:
. Goldman Sachs: $1,034,615
. JP Morgan Chase: $847,855
. Citigroup: $755,057
. Morgan Stanley: $528,182
The total is $3.7 million.xvi [18] (Hillary Clinton's campaign, apparently
thought more likely to succeed, was supported with $14.6 million from the
banks.xvii [19])
President Obama's choice of Wall Street bankers to head his Treasury
Department was Timothy Geithner, lately the president of the Federal
Reserve
Bank of New York. Geithner wasted no time in resuming the troubled asset
purchases, and his execution of the program was no less profitable for the
banks than Paulson's.xviii [20]
Wall Street's grip on the New Democratic Party, however, and its influence
in the Obama administration, appeared in the Department of Justice as well.
Eric Holder joined the administration from the law firm of Covington
Burling, which represents in Washington most of the Wall Street banks.
Charged with prosecuting their criminal behavior, Holder found the banks
"too big to fail." Instead of criminal indictments and lawsuits, Holder
negotiated with each of the banks a financial penalty to be paid from
corporate funds. No corporate executives were jailed, no personal fines
levied, no records of criminal conduct filed, no salaries reduced, no
bonuses denied.
Today the Wall Street banks are larger and more powerful than ever, and
Holder has returned to Covington Burling. President Obama-of the New
Democratic Party-has provided no similar relief to the working families and
communities of color. Their struggles continue, the crime and welfare laws
have not been repealed, and the title of a recent study tells the tragic
truth: "During Obama's Presidency, Wealth Inequality has Increased and
Poverty Levels are Higher."xix [21]
i [22]"Two Clintons. 41 years. $3 Billion," Washington Post, November 19,
2015
ii [23]"Occupy Hillary Clinton's Wall Street Speeches," Huffpost Politics,
February 28, 2016
iii [24]"Hillary Clinton. Top 20 Contributors, 1999-2002,"
http://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/contrib.php/type==C&cid [25].
iv [26]"Hillary Clinton, Jeb Bush Still Favorites of Wall Street Banks,"
Huffpost Politics, October 22, 2015
v [27]"$153 Million in Bill and Hillary Speaking Fees, Documented," Robert
Yoon, CNN, Updated February 6, 2016.
vi [28]"Hillary Clinton Made More in 12 Speeches to Big Banks That Most of
Us Earn in a Lifetime,"
https://theintercept.com/2016/01/08/hillary-clinton-earned-more-from-12-spee
ches-to-big-banks-than-most-americans-earn-in-their-lifetime/ [29]
vii [30]"Clinton Defends Wall Street Speeches at CNN Town Hall," Time,
February 4, 2016
viii [31]From Hillary Clinton's campaign website, under "Wall Street
Reform," http://hillaryclinton.com/issues/wall-street [32]
ix [33]"Hillary Clinton net worth: $45 Million,"
http://www.celebritynetworth.com/ [34]
x [35]"Bill Clinton net worth: $80 Million,"
http://www.celebritynetworth.com/ [34]
xi [36]"Wall Street Isn't Worried about Hillary Clinton's Plan," CNN
Money,
October 8, 2015.
xii [37]"Poverty Has Nearly Doubled Since 2000 in America," International
Business Times, August 9, 2015
xiii [38]"Wall Street Reform: Wall Street must work for Main Street,"
http://hillaryclinton.com/issues/wall-street [32]
xiv [39]"Hillary Clinton's Tough Talk on Wall Street,"
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/11/13/hillary-clinton [40]..
xv [41]"Troubled Asset Relief Program," Wikipedia
xvi [42]"Barack Obama. Top Contributors, 2008 Cycle,"
http;//www.opensecrets.org/pres08/contrib.php/cid= [43]...
xvii [44]Washington Post, "Two Clintons. 41 Years. $3 Billion"
xviii [45]See Bailout: An Inside Account of How Washington Abandoned Main
Street While Rescuing Wall Street, by Neil Barofsky, passim.
xix
[46]http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/02/26/during-obamas-presidency-wealth-i
nequality-has-increased-and-poverty-levels-are-higher/ [47]
Richard Behan lives in Corvallis, Oregon. He can be reached at
rwbehan(at)comcast.net [48].
Share on Facebook Share
Share on Twitter Tweet
Report typos and corrections to 'corrections@xxxxxxxxxxxx'. [49]
[50]
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[2] http://alternet.org
[3] https://mail.google.com/mail/u/4/#-2077643131_1335065318_sdendnote1sym
[4] https://mail.google.com/mail/u/4/#-2077643131_1335065318_sdendnote2sym
[5] https://mail.google.com/mail/u/4/#-2077643131_1335065318_sdendnote3sym
[6] https://mail.google.com/mail/u/4/#-2077643131_1335065318_sdendnote4sym
[7] https://mail.google.com/mail/u/4/#-2077643131_1335065318_sdendnote5sym
[8] https://mail.google.com/mail/u/4/#-2077643131_1335065318_sdendnote6sym
[9] https://mail.google.com/mail/u/4/#-2077643131_1335065318_sdendnote7sym
[10] https://mail.google.com/mail/u/4/#-2077643131_1335065318_sdendnote8sym
[11] https://mail.google.com/mail/u/4/#-2077643131_1335065318_sdendnote9sym
[12]
https://mail.google.com/mail/u/4/#-2077643131_1335065318_sdendnote10sym
[13]
https://mail.google.com/mail/u/4/#-2077643131_1335065318_sdendnote11sym
[14]
https://mail.google.com/mail/u/4/#-2077643131_1335065318_sdendnote12sym
[15]
https://mail.google.com/mail/u/4/#-2077643131_1335065318_sdendnote13sym
[16]
https://mail.google.com/mail/u/4/#-2077643131_1335065318_sdendnote14sym
[17]
https://mail.google.com/mail/u/4/#-2077643131_1335065318_sdendnote15sym
[18]
https://mail.google.com/mail/u/4/#-2077643131_1335065318_sdendnote16sym
[19]
https://mail.google.com/mail/u/4/#-2077643131_1335065318_sdendnote17sym
[20]
https://mail.google.com/mail/u/4/#-2077643131_1335065318_sdendnote18sym
[21]
https://mail.google.com/mail/u/4/#-2077643131_1335065318_sdendnote19sym
[22] https://mail.google.com/mail/u/4/#-2077643131_1335065318_sdendnote1anc
[23] https://mail.google.com/mail/u/4/#-2077643131_1335065318_sdendnote2anc
[24] https://mail.google.com/mail/u/4/#-2077643131_1335065318_sdendnote3anc
[25] http://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/contrib.php/type==C&cid
[26] https://mail.google.com/mail/u/4/#-2077643131_1335065318_sdendnote4anc
[27] https://mail.google.com/mail/u/4/#-2077643131_1335065318_sdendnote5anc
[28] https://mail.google.com/mail/u/4/#-2077643131_1335065318_sdendnote6anc
[29]
https://theintercept.com/2016/01/08/hillary-clinton-earned-more-from-12-spee
ches-to-big-banks-than-most-americans-earn-in-their-lifetime/
[30] https://mail.google.com/mail/u/4/#-2077643131_1335065318_sdendnote7anc
[31] https://mail.google.com/mail/u/4/#-2077643131_1335065318_sdendnote8anc
[32] http://hillaryclinton.com/issues/wall-street
[33] https://mail.google.com/mail/u/4/#-2077643131_1335065318_sdendnote9anc
[34] http://www.celebritynetworth.com/
[35]
https://mail.google.com/mail/u/4/#-2077643131_1335065318_sdendnote10anc
[36]
https://mail.google.com/mail/u/4/#-2077643131_1335065318_sdendnote11anc
[37]
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[38]
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[39]
https://mail.google.com/mail/u/4/#-2077643131_1335065318_sdendnote14anc
[40] http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/11/13/hillary-clinton
[41]
https://mail.google.com/mail/u/4/#-2077643131_1335065318_sdendnote15anc
[42]
https://mail.google.com/mail/u/4/#-2077643131_1335065318_sdendnote16anc
[43] http://www.opensecrets.org/pres08/contrib.php/cid=
[44]
https://mail.google.com/mail/u/4/#-2077643131_1335065318_sdendnote17anc
[45]
https://mail.google.com/mail/u/4/#-2077643131_1335065318_sdendnote18anc
[46]
https://mail.google.com/mail/u/4/#-2077643131_1335065318_sdendnote19anc
[47]
http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/02/26/during-obamas-presidency-wealth-inequ
ality-has-increased-and-poverty-levels-are-higher/
[48] http://comcast.net/
[49] mailto:corrections@xxxxxxxxxxxx?Subject=Typo on The Clintons' $93
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Published on Alternet (http://www.alternet.org)
Home > The Clintons' $93 Million Romance With Wall Street
The Clintons' $93 Million Romance With Wall Street
By Richard Behan [1] / AlterNet [2]
March 11, 2016
For 24 years Bill and Hillary Clinton have courted Wall Street money with
notable success. During that time the New York banks contributed:
. $11.17 million to Bill Clinton's presidential campaign in 1992.
. $28.37 million for his re-election in 1996.
. $2.13 million to Hillary Clinton's senatorial campaign in 2002.
. $6.02 million for her re-election in 2006.
. $14.61 million to Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign in 2008.
. $21.42 million to her 2016 campaign.
The total here is $83.72 million for the six campaigns,i [3] ii [4]
disbursed from 11 banks: Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, UBS, Bank of
America/Merrill Lynch, Wells Fargo, Barclay's, JP Morgan Chase, CIBC,
Credit
Suisse, Deutsche Bank, and Morgan Stanley.iii [5] iv [6]
Then there were the speeches. Sixteen days after leaving the White House in
2001, Mr. Clinton delivered a speech to Morgan Stanley, for which he was
paid $125,000. That was the first of many speeches to the New York banks.
Over the next 14 years, Mr. Clinton's Wall Street speaking engagements
earned him a total of $5,910,000:v [7]
. $1,550,000 from Goldman Sachs.
. $1,690,000 from UBS.
. $1,075,000 from Bank of America/Merrill Lynch.
. $770,000 from Deutsche Bank.
. $700,000 from Citigroup
After she resigned as Secretary of State in 2012, Hillary Clinton took to
the lecture circuit as well. Some of her income has come to light during
the
current presidential campaign, like the $675,000 she was paid for three
speeches to Goldman Sachs. That disclosure, however, belittles her
financial
achievement and the scope of her audiences. She also addressed the Bank of
America/Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley, Deutsche Bank, UBS, Ameriprise,
Apollo Management Holdings, CIBC, Fidelity Investments, and Golden Tree
Asset Management, earning another $2,265,000.vi [8]
No other political couple in modern history has enjoyed so much money
flowing to them from Wall Street for such a long time-$92.57 million over a
quarter century.
During a CNN forum on February 3, Anderson Cooper wondered if Goldman
Sachs'
$675,000 might impact her prospective presidential decisions. Defending her
integrity with undisguised indignation, she described her independence from
the banks:
Anybody who knows me, who thinks that they can influence me, name anything
they've influenced me on. Just name one thing. I'm out here every day
saying
I'm going to shut them down, I'm going after them. I'm going to jail them
if
they should be jailed. I'm going to break them up.vii [9]
Her campaign website confirms her fierce determination to oversee the banks
and hold them strictly to account. "Wall Street must work for Main Street,"
the website claims, outlining her program for "Wall Street Reform":
. Veto Republican efforts to repeal or weaken Dodd-Frank
. Tackle dangerous risks in the big banks and elsewhere in the
financial system.
. Hold both individuals and corporations accountable when they break
the law.viii [10]
$675,000 might be insufficient to elicit Ms. Clinton's sympathetic ear, but
a quarter century of accepting tens of millions of dollars is not so easily
dismissed. It might have some impact on the Clintons' sense of gratitude
and
certainly on their social, cultural and political environments.
Over that period of time, while one or the other held public office almost
continuously, the couple accumulated a net worth of $125 million.ix [11] x
[12] Measured by family wealth, this inserted the couple into the top 1% of
American families by a factor of 16 ($7.88 million is the threshold).
In New York, their home upon leaving the White House, the Clintons moved
easily among other multimillionaires, the celebrated, wealthy, and
accomplished people of the city, such as Lloyd Blankfein, Robert Rubin and
Henry Paulson, CEOs of the benefactor Wall Street banks. The couple could
scarcely avoid adopting the mindset and political perspectives of the
people
who now constituted their peer group.
Breaking up banks, jailing the lawless executives, forcing Wall Street to
work for Main Street: Hillary Clinton's stern proclamations of impartial
law
enforcement and strict regulation are difficult to take seriously.
Wall Street doesn't. One bank executive assured his clients, "We continue
to
believe Clinton would be one of the better candidates for financial firms."
He was quoted in a CNN Money article, "Wall Street Isn't Worried about
Hillary Clinton's Plan," which stated,
Hillary Clinton unveiled her big plan to curb the worst of Wall Street's
excesses. The reaction from the banking community was a shrug.xi [13]
There is good reason for the banks' sanguine view. Over the 24 years of the
romance, the Clintons first reoriented their political party, gave it a new
name, the New Democratic Party, and put it at Wall Street's service. Then
they engineered financial opportunities for the New York banks of immense
value, running into the hundreds of billions. And through the years as
president, senator and secretary of state, the Clintons supported Wall
Street's interests at every necessary turn.
In the early 1990s, chairing the Democratic Leadership Council, Bill
Clinton
ushered in the centrist, triangulating New Democratic Party, explicitly to
be more business-friendly and to attract the financial support of corporate
America. Wall Street supported his 1992 campaign handsomely, and Bill
Clinton became the first president under the new banner, with Hillary
Clinton at his side.
When he appointed Robert Rubin of Goldman Sachs as Secretary of the
Treasury
Department, Clinton established a precedent. For the next 24 years, every
administration would find Wall Street executives to serve in the position.
But the working families of America and the African-American and Hispanic
communities-the party's historic constituencies-were betrayed and
abandoned,
deprived of effective representation in Washington. The Clintons' political
campaigns over the next decades became monumental hypocrisies, Bill donning
sunglasses to play his saxophone for Arsenio Hall, Hillary visiting black
churches to hug the parishioners. They speak warmly to the traditional
constituencies with carefully scripted political rhetoric, currying their
favor, depending on them for electoral victory, but effectively obscuring
the truth of their betrayal.
On taking office Mr. Clinton announced, "The era of big government is
over."
On that cue he co-opted two issues long used by Republicans to mask their
party's racism: "welfare" and "crime." To address the issues, two laws were
passed in Clinton's first term that savaged the betrayed constituencies.
The first was the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity
Reconciliation Act, which fulfilled Clinton's promise to "end welfare as we
know it." Since the end of the Clinton administration, poverty in the U.S.
has nearly doubled: "...the number of Americans living in high-poverty
areas
rose to 13.8 million in 2013 from 7.2 million in 2000, with African
Americans and Latinos driving most of the gains."xii [14]
To show how tough on crime he could be, Clinton next guided the Violent
Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994 through Congress. A flurry of
prison construction quickly followed, an industry of private for-profit
prisons took hold and flourished, and a skyrocketing population mostly of
young black males soon filled them, most frequently charged with nonviolent
drug offenses.
Sixteen years later, the effects of the law were described by Michelle
Alexander in her searing book, The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the
Age of Colorblindness. Alexander well understands how the Clintons and
their
creation, the New Democratic Party, left working families and communities
of
color without a political voice. Her latest work is an article, "Black
Lives
Shattered," in the Feb. 29, 2016 issue of The Nation, in which she details
how the two Clinton laws have devastated African-American families and sent
millions to prison. In the article's caption, she asks, "The Clinton's
legacy has been the impoverishment of black America-so why are we still
voting for them?"
From the crime bill to welfare reform, policies Bill Clinton enacted-and
Hillary Clinton supported-decimated black America. Hillary Clinton now
apologizes for the laws, suggesting they are no longer quite so
appropriate.
But she has not, cannot and will not mention two other laws passed at the
bidding of President Clinton's Treasury Secretary, Robert Rubin. These laws
enriched the Wall Street banks by hundreds of billions of dollars, but they
too devastated working families, African Americans and Latinos.
The first was the Financial Services Modernization Act of 1999, repealing
the Glass-Steagall legislation of 1933. Now it was legal once more for
financial institutions to mix commercial and investment banking. Goldman
Sachs et al. could now use depositor's funds, insured by the Federal
Deposit
Insurance Corporation, to buy up "subprime" mortgages, the high-interest
debt obligations of typically low-income, black and Latino families.
The next law was the Commodity Futures Modernization Act. Now Goldman Sachs
et al. could transform packages of those subprime mortgages into
complicated
derivatives called mortgage-backed-obligations, have them fraudulently
rated
as AAA investments, and sell them around the world, without limit,
restriction or regulation, at immense profit.
For eight years the bubble inflated, and then it collapsed in the last year
of George Bush's administration. Real estate values plummeted. The stock
market was hammered. So was the U.S. economy. And so tragically were many
low-income, African American and Latino families. $13 trillion in household
wealth vaporized. Nine million workers lost their jobs. Five million
families were evicted from their homes.xiii [15]
This is what the Clinton administration, and the New Democratic Party, had
wrought. The banks were caught with hundreds of billions in mortgage-backed
derivatives still in the pipeline, the market values dropping like stones.
Wall Street's prospective losses were horrific; bankruptcies loomed. But
George Bush's Treasury Secretary was the obligatory Wall Streeter: Hank
Paulson, recently CEO of Goldman Sachs. In a heartbeat, Paulson rammed
through Congress the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008. It was
known as the Troubled Asset Relief Program, and it handed Paulson $700
billion of taxpayers' money to buy the near-worthless securities from the
banks.
Hillary Clinton, now the U.S. senator from New York, voted for the bill,
telling a New York radio station the next day, "I think the banks of New
York...are probably the biggest winners in this."xiv [16]
Paulson started buying, typically paying the banks half again the market
value of the "troubled assets."xv [17] But a presidential campaign was
underway, and soon he would have to stop.
Barack Obama, overcoming Hillary Clinton in the primaries, was elected as
the second president from the New Democratic Party. Obama's campaign
contributions from Wall Street:
. Goldman Sachs: $1,034,615
. JP Morgan Chase: $847,855
. Citigroup: $755,057
. Morgan Stanley: $528,182
The total is $3.7 million.xvi [18] (Hillary Clinton's campaign, apparently
thought more likely to succeed, was supported with $14.6 million from the
banks.xvii [19])
President Obama's choice of Wall Street bankers to head his Treasury
Department was Timothy Geithner, lately the president of the Federal
Reserve
Bank of New York. Geithner wasted no time in resuming the troubled asset
purchases, and his execution of the program was no less profitable for the
banks than Paulson's.xviii [20]
Wall Street's grip on the New Democratic Party, however, and its influence
in the Obama administration, appeared in the Department of Justice as well.
Eric Holder joined the administration from the law firm of Covington
Burling, which represents in Washington most of the Wall Street banks.
Charged with prosecuting their criminal behavior, Holder found the banks
"too big to fail." Instead of criminal indictments and lawsuits, Holder
negotiated with each of the banks a financial penalty to be paid from
corporate funds. No corporate executives were jailed, no personal fines
levied, no records of criminal conduct filed, no salaries reduced, no
bonuses denied.
Today the Wall Street banks are larger and more powerful than ever, and
Holder has returned to Covington Burling. President Obama-of the New
Democratic Party-has provided no similar relief to the working families and
communities of color. Their struggles continue, the crime and welfare laws
have not been repealed, and the title of a recent study tells the tragic
truth: "During Obama's Presidency, Wealth Inequality has Increased and
Poverty Levels are Higher."xix [21]
i [22]"Two Clintons. 41 years. $3 Billion," Washington Post, November 19,
2015
ii [23]"Occupy Hillary Clinton's Wall Street Speeches," Huffpost Politics,
February 28, 2016
iii [24]"Hillary Clinton. Top 20 Contributors, 1999-2002,"
http://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/contrib.php/type==C&cid [25].
iv [26]"Hillary Clinton, Jeb Bush Still Favorites of Wall Street Banks,"
Huffpost Politics, October 22, 2015
v [27]"$153 Million in Bill and Hillary Speaking Fees, Documented," Robert
Yoon, CNN, Updated February 6, 2016.
vi [28]"Hillary Clinton Made More in 12 Speeches to Big Banks That Most of
Us Earn in a Lifetime,"
https://theintercept.com/2016/01/08/hillary-clinton-earned-more-from-12-spee
ches-to-big-banks-than-most-americans-earn-in-their-lifetime/ [29]
vii [30]"Clinton Defends Wall Street Speeches at CNN Town Hall," Time,
February 4, 2016
viii [31]From Hillary Clinton's campaign website, under "Wall Street
Reform," http://hillaryclinton.com/issues/wall-street [32]
ix [33]"Hillary Clinton net worth: $45 Million,"
http://www.celebritynetworth.com/ [34]
x [35]"Bill Clinton net worth: $80 Million,"
http://www.celebritynetworth.com/ [34]
xi [36]"Wall Street Isn't Worried about Hillary Clinton's Plan," CNN Money,
October 8, 2015.
xii [37]"Poverty Has Nearly Doubled Since 2000 in America," International
Business Times, August 9, 2015
xiii [38]"Wall Street Reform: Wall Street must work for Main Street,"
http://hillaryclinton.com/issues/wall-street [32]
xiv [39]"Hillary Clinton's Tough Talk on Wall Street,"
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/11/13/hillary-clinton [40]..
xv [41]"Troubled Asset Relief Program," Wikipedia
xvi [42]"Barack Obama. Top Contributors, 2008 Cycle,"
http;//www.opensecrets.org/pres08/contrib.php/cid= [43]...
xvii [44]Washington Post, "Two Clintons. 41 Years. $3 Billion"
xviii [45]See Bailout: An Inside Account of How Washington Abandoned Main
Street While Rescuing Wall Street, by Neil Barofsky, passim.
xix
[46]http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/02/26/during-obamas-presidency-wealth-i
nequality-has-increased-and-poverty-levels-are-higher/ [47]
Richard Behan lives in Corvallis, Oregon. He can be reached at
rwbehan(at)comcast.net [48].
Error! Hyperlink reference not valid.
Error! Hyperlink reference not valid.
Report typos and corrections to 'corrections@xxxxxxxxxxxx'. [49]
Error! Hyperlink reference not valid.[50]
Source URL:
http://www.alternet.org/election-2016/clintons-93-million-romance-wall-stree
t
Links:
[1] http://www.alternet.org/authors/richard-behan
[2] http://alternet.org
[3] https://mail.google.com/mail/u/4/#-2077643131_1335065318_sdendnote1sym
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[8] https://mail.google.com/mail/u/4/#-2077643131_1335065318_sdendnote6sym
[9] https://mail.google.com/mail/u/4/#-2077643131_1335065318_sdendnote7sym
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[23] https://mail.google.com/mail/u/4/#-2077643131_1335065318_sdendnote2anc
[24] https://mail.google.com/mail/u/4/#-2077643131_1335065318_sdendnote3anc
[25] http://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/contrib.php/type==C&cid
[26] https://mail.google.com/mail/u/4/#-2077643131_1335065318_sdendnote4anc
[27] https://mail.google.com/mail/u/4/#-2077643131_1335065318_sdendnote5anc
[28] https://mail.google.com/mail/u/4/#-2077643131_1335065318_sdendnote6anc
[29]
https://theintercept.com/2016/01/08/hillary-clinton-earned-more-from-12-spee
ches-to-big-banks-than-most-americans-earn-in-their-lifetime/
[30] https://mail.google.com/mail/u/4/#-2077643131_1335065318_sdendnote7anc
[31] https://mail.google.com/mail/u/4/#-2077643131_1335065318_sdendnote8anc
[32] http://hillaryclinton.com/issues/wall-street
[33] https://mail.google.com/mail/u/4/#-2077643131_1335065318_sdendnote9anc
[34] http://www.celebritynetworth.com/
[35]
https://mail.google.com/mail/u/4/#-2077643131_1335065318_sdendnote10anc
[36]
https://mail.google.com/mail/u/4/#-2077643131_1335065318_sdendnote11anc
[37]
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[38]
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[39]
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[40] http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/11/13/hillary-clinton
[41]
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[42]
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[43] http://www.opensecrets.org/pres08/contrib.php/cid=
[44]
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[47]
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ality-has-increased-and-poverty-levels-are-higher/
[48] http://comcast.net/
[49] mailto:corrections@xxxxxxxxxxxx?Subject=Typo on The Clintons' $93
Million Romance With Wall Street
[50] http://www.alternet.org/
[51] http://www.alternet.org/%2Bnew_src%2B
