{"id":21188,"date":"2010-01-12T12:39:00","date_gmt":"2010-01-12T17:39:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/?p=21188"},"modified":"2010-01-12T13:00:06","modified_gmt":"2010-01-12T18:00:06","slug":"the-other-plot-to-wreck-america","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/daily-astrology\/the-other-plot-to-wreck-america\/","title":{"rendered":"The Other Plot to Wreck America"},"content":{"rendered":"

This op-ed in the New York Times was sent in by Kelly Cowan, our spy in the house of love. It’s called The Other Plot to Wreck America<\/strong><\/a>, by Frank Rich. Here are a few snips.<\/em><\/p>\n

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Americans must be told the full story of how Wall Street gamed and inflated the housing bubble, made out like bandits, and then left millions of households in ruin. Without that reckoning, there will be no public clamor for serious reform of a financial system that was as cunningly breached as airline security at the Amsterdam airport. And without reform, another massive attack on our economic security is guaranteed.<\/p>\n

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It\u2019s against this backdrop that this week\u2019s long-awaited initial public hearings of the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission are so critical. This is the bipartisan panel that Congress mandated last spring to investigate the still murky story of what happened in the meltdown. Phil Angelides, the former California treasurer who is the inquiry\u2019s chairman…gets it. But he has a tough act to follow: Ferdinand Pecora, the legendary prosecutor who served as chief counsel to the Senate committee that investigated the 1929 crash as F.D.R. took office.
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\nThe reckless Citi executives of our day may not have given themselves interest-free loans, but they often walked away with the short-term, illusionary profits while their employees were left with shredded jobs and 401(k)\u2019s. Among those Citi executives was Robert Rubin, who, as the Clinton Treasury secretary, helped repeal the last vestiges of Glass-Steagall after years of Wall Street assault.<\/strong> Somewhere Pecora is turning in his grave<\/p>\n

Rubin has never apologized, let alone been held accountable<\/strong>. But he\u2019s hardly alone.
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\nIf Citi, among the most egregious of Wall Street reprobates, feels it can get away with business as usual, it\u2019s because it fears no retribution. And it got more good news last week. Now that Chris Dodd is vacating the Senate, his chairmanship of the Banking Committee may fall next year to Tim Johnson of South Dakota, home to Citi\u2019s credit card operation. Johnson was the only Senate Democrat to vote against Congress\u2019s recent bill policing credit card abuses.
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\nIf Citi, among the most egregious of Wall Street reprobates, feels it can get away with business as usual, it\u2019s because it fears no retribution. And it got more good news last week. Now that Chris Dodd is vacating the Senate, his chairmanship of the Banking Committee may fall next year to Tim Johnson of South Dakota, home to Citi\u2019s credit card operation. Johnson was the only Senate Democrat to vote against Congress\u2019s recent bill policing credit card abuses.<\/p>\n

If they all skate away yet again by deflecting blame or mouthing pro forma mea culpas, it will be a sign that this inquiry, like so many other promises of reform since 9\/15, is likely to leave Wall Street\u2019s status quo largely intact. That\u2019s the ticking-bomb scenario that truly imperils us all. <\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This op-ed in the New York Times was sent in by Kelly Cowan, our spy in the house of love. It’s called The Other Plot to Wreck America, by Frank Rich. Here are a few snips. Americans must be told the full story of how Wall Street gamed and inflated the housing bubble, made out … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"generate_page_header":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21188"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21188"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21188\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21188"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21188"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21188"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}