Hillary Clinton and Wall Street Reform: Are the Bankers Laughing?

The former Secretary of State has a plan for reforming Wall Street, and it's posted on her website (Ha-ha-ha!!!)

Unless the President of the Untied States becomes a dictator, or unless the Congress can get a majority of Progressive Democrats packing both the House and the Senate (and if Hillary becomes president and can be believed at all), then any plan she proposes is all just talk — and nothing else.

And the bankers know this. So while the bankers may not be laughing all the way to the bank, they're not squirming in their leather upholstered chairs either. But they may be smirking (or winking and nodding at Hillary).

The New Republic (October 8, 2015) "The rise of Bernie Sanders as a policy force among liberals has forced Hillary Clinton to lurch left this presidential primary season, from opposing the Trans-Pacific Partnership and the Keystone XL pipeline to calling for a repeal of the “Cadillac tax” on high-cost health care plans. Now she’s cobbled together a plan to protect and advance reforms of the financial industry. Clinton’s plan does not go as far as Sanders’ or her other rivals’ — there’s no proposal to reconstitute the firewall between investment and commercial banking."

She has already said she wouldn't repeal her husband's bill that deregualted the banks in 1999. That would be saying her husband had been wrong.

Yahoo News (October 7, 2015) Hillary Clinton doesn’t support revival of Glass-Steagall Act (by Dylan Stableford, Senior editor): "Senator Bernie Sanders and former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley — two of [Hillary] Clinton’s challengers for the Democratic presidential nomination — as well as Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, who along with Arizona Sen. John McCain, reintroduced legislation to revive Glass-Steagall this year. Hillary says:

“If you only reinstate Glass-Steagall, you don’t go after all these other institutions in what is called the shadow banking system — hedge funds and other financial entities that have too much power in our economy. I have what I consider to be a more comprehensive approach to what we need to do to rein in these institutions, including the big banks. I’m going to go after what I think are the real problems, not the problems on the past, because what I’m interested in is stopping something like this from happening again.” (Typical B.S. Clinton-Speak.]

Bill Clinton says criticism over the law’s repeal is unfounded. "There's not a single, solitary example that it had anything to do with the financial crash."

Politifact rated that particular statement "mostly true" — but only because it wasn't the "sole linchpin":

"By focusing on the bill that officially repealed Glass-Steagall, Clinton's statement ignores the fact that the demise of Glass-Steagall took place over decades, amid a deregulatory push in which the Clinton administration played a role. By the time the law to repeal hit his desk, Glass-Steagall had been whittled down so much that it wasn’t very meaningful. It's a matter of debate how much of a role the overall demise of Glass-Steagall had in causing the financial crisis, but we couldn't find any economists who argue that the regulation was the sole linchpin keeping the financial system stable until its official repeal in 1999."

VOX (October 8, 2015) "Critics say Hillary Clinton is pro-Wall Street. Her Wall Street reform plan says otherwise. Clinton wants to enforce financial regulations by leveling charges against individuals as well as corporations. Following the criticism of regulators leveled by Warren and others, the Clinton plan would have the Department of Justice curtail the deferral of prosecutions. [More Clinton B.S.]

Clinton has also vowed to stop the “revolving door” between Washington and Wall Street — more Clinton B.S. — How will she ever make a living if she's not elected? The bankers won't pay her and her husband for speeches anymore!!!

Read more about her proposed plan to reform Wall Street in the links above. There's a lot of details, opinions and differing contrasts between the candidates — good reading if you're in to this sort of thing)

But as usual, in the end it comes down to credibility. What would a person just "say" as opposed to what would they actually "do". In that regard, I can't trust Hillary any farther than I can throw her. To me she has always come across as just another opportunistic politician, one who has been a big part of the problem for the past 35 years.