Only in the fever-swamps of the left could anyone believe that the
Republicans on the FCIC sought to "ban" the words "Wall Street," "shadow
banking," "interconnection," and "deregulation" from the commission's
report.
The drafts of the report we saw used the term "Wall Street" to apply to
Countrywide Financial, the notorious subprime lender; it used the term
"shadow banking" to apply to any financial institution, including
insurance companies, hedge funds, and securities firms; and so on. You
get the point.
What we were asking for was precision in the use of these words, so that
when the words "Wall Street" were used they referred to the major
commercial and investment banks that were underwriters for the private
label securities that the commission majority's report discusses.
What we were told, in the case of "Wall Street" is that it's a general
term for the financial system and thus could in fact include a subprime
lender like Countrywide, based in California.
Maybe this was changed in subsequent drafts of the report, maybe it was
not, but using the term Wall Street to describe the financial system
generally is -- most objective observers would conclude -- a political
statement rather than an accurate one. You decide.
Incidentally, what was released last week was not our "report." It was a
statement of the issues as we saw them on the date when the statute that
set up the commission had specified that the commission -- which was not
ready on that date -- was supposed to issue its report. When the
commission's report is finally available, it will have a full response
from the minority. This full response, however, will not be included in
the commercially published book on the commission's report. For that
book, minority reports and dissents, which probably total over 55,000
words, were limited by the majority to 9 pages (or 4050 words) for each
of the four of us. It should shock those who have been so loudly
denouncing the Republicans to learn that Republicans' alternative views
will not be fully included in the book that will be in all the
bookstores in the U.S. on the date the report is released. We'll all be
interested to see whether the advocates for free speech are as loud in
condemning that as they have been in circulating misleading statements
about what the Republicans want to ban from the majority's report.
"most objective observers would conclude" is a statement of opinion, not fact. The first sentence of the article proves that the author is not objective, and therefore cannot accurately predict the conclusions of those who are objective.
if you have anything contrary to express...your viewpoint is automatically denouced without any supportable facts and dressed down in a coat of convoluted thinking that would confuse Plato. Without any reasonable or convincing argument you are simply wrong regardless, its the new American way.
When the report shows the linkage between Countrywide, Fannie, Freddie and the Democratic leadership...it will be called a lie....and revert back to Mr. Bush.....because everything reverts to Bush/Cheney.
Anyone who ACTUALLY has followed closely the Banking Mortgage Mess and its collapse already knows whats in this report...if you've seen the testimony during the hearings, read the Bills, tracked the repeal of Glass Steagle, noted the stories on Freddie and Fannie's practices, remember how the Fed forced the 7 biggest Banks to take Tarp money, watched what happend to AIG and Ambac, remember UBS's famous initial write down of losses in the spring of '08 for 42 Billion dollars...and why. as well as looked at honestly the borrowing practices of America's ignorant population... The answer is no mystery...and the blame falls sqaurly on now ones feet.
For me, its amazing it didn't happen a few years sooner...
I think is an accurate one.
Do all repubs have such thin skin? Or is it self-esteem issues?
I actually appreciate this. It tells me that I don't have to pay attention to anything that comes afterwards, saving me the trouble of shoveling through a pile of toxic disinformation and right-wing propaganda.
It is kind of like when a troll kindly identifies himself by referring to the Democrat party.
Calling it something else will have no effect whatever on those who have lost trillions in property value, retirement and investment funds, and the like. A spade is a spade, no matter what deck you deal them from!
Next time leave the specter of Frank Luntz out of the conversations, and we all would be better served.
"Word Ban
The divide intensified when Thomas proposed in the last few weeks deleting a series of words Republicans thought were pejorative or not precise enough to refer to a financial system that included mortgage lending or insurance firms, for example. Included in the proposal, according to Brooksley Born, a Democrat on the panel, were the words “Wall Street,” “deregulation” and “shadow banking.”"
ref http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-12-15/crisis-panel-s-split-on-blaming-wall-street-may-limit-impact-of-findings.html
I do not find "incredible": an attempt by the Republican stooges on the committee to remove language they fear might incite the public against their predator masters.
Is my language an attempt to incite? You betcha.
The usual suspects ....
Some AEI scholars are considered to be some of the leading architects of the second Bush administration's public policy.
[7] More than twenty AEI scholars and fellows served either in a Bush administration policy post or on one of the government's many panels and commissions. Among the prominent former government officials now affiliated with AEI are former U.S. ambassador to the U.N. John Bolton, now an AEI senior fellow; former chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities; Lynne Cheney, a longtime AEI senior fellow; former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, now an AEI senior fellow; former Dutch member of parliament Ayaan Hirsi Ali, an AEI visiting fellow; and former deputy secretary of defense Paul Wolfowitz, now an AEI visiting scholar. Other prominent individuals affiliated with AEI include Kevin Hassett, Frederick W. Kagan, Leon Kass, Charles Murray, Michael Novak, Norman J. Ornstein, Richard Perle, Radek Sikorski, Christina Hoff Sommers, and Peter J. Wallison.[8]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Enterprise_Institute