dagblog - Comments for "Reclassification is no excuse"

Andrew Sorkin apparently has

PeraclesPlease — Mon, 01 Feb 2016 07:15:35 +0000

Andrew Sorkin apparently has Warren admitting Glass-Steagall "didn't cause 2008 but.... " though couldn't find the quote (only found this interesting column where she opposed a Deputy appointment) - perhaps she's not invincible in judgment... (Robert Reich I like, but I certainly don't take his claims as gospel - only as a healthy side of the story)

Update: found it (worth reading in all) - "when I called Ms. Warren and pressed her about whether she thought the financial crisis or JPMorgan's losses could have been avoided if Glass-Steagall were in place, she conceded: "The answer is probably 'No' to both."

From Forbes (if what OceanKat linked to already weren't enough):

Glass-Steagall was enacted in 1933 to create a firewall between commercial and investment banks: commercial banks could not underwrite or deal in securities, and investment banks could not accept deposits. The Act also restricted commercial banks from being affiliated with any company that underwrote or dealt in securities.

But by the 1990s, the affiliation provision was widely viewed as unnecessary and even harmful to financial institutions. In 1999, President Clinton signed GLB into law. Although it left the bulk of Glass-Steagall in place, it ended the affiliation restrictions, freeing up holding companies to own both commercial and investment banks.

There is zero evidence this change unleashed the financial crisis. If you tally the institutions that ran into severe problems in 2008-09, the list includes Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch, AIG, and Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, none of which would have come under Glass-Steagall’s restrictions. Even President Obama has recently acknowledged that “there is not evidence that having Glass-Steagall in place would somehow change the dynamic.”

As for the FDIC-insured commercial banks that ran into trouble, the record is also clear: what got them into trouble were not activities restricted by Glass-Steagall. Their problems arose from investments in residential mortgages and residential mortgage-backed securities—investments they had always been free to engage in.

I understand you don't like

HSG — Sun, 31 Jan 2016 23:35:50 +0000

In reply to Ah yes, the "arrogance" card,

I understand you don't like "arrogant" which I suggest but do not insist fairly captures Clinton's mindset. What adjective do you believe better describes Clinton's ill-advised decision to keep all of her emails on a private server in her house and not to preserve them at the State Department as she was required to do?

The regulation in effect on

HSG — Sun, 31 Jan 2016 23:24:22 +0000

In reply to No, Hillary did not violate

The regulation in effect on October 2, 2009, just after she took office and after Powell and Rice had served their terms, provided:

Agencies that allow employees to send and receive official electronic mail messages using a system not operated by the agency must ensure that Federal records sent or received on such systems are preserved in the appropriate agency record keeping system.

36 CFR 1236.24 (Oct 2, 2009) (emphasis supplied).

Did Clinton preserve her emails in the appropriate agency's record keeping system?

"Elizabeth Warren, the

HSG — Sun, 31 Jan 2016 23:12:34 +0000

In reply to This is typical for Hal. I

"Elizabeth Warren, the Democratic candidate for Senate in Massachusetts, sent an e-mail to thousands of her constituents, pressing to bring back the law, which she said, 'stopped investment banks from gambling away people’s life savings for decades — until Wall Street successfully lobbied to have it repealed in 1999.'" http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2012/05/21/reinstating-an-old-rule-is-not-a-...

Per Robert Reich, Hillary's opposition to a new Glass-Steagall is a "big mistake economically because [the repeal of Glass-Steagall led directly to the 2008 Wall Street crash, and without it we’re in danger of another one." http://robertreich.org/post/12411422922

This is typical for Hal. I

ocean-kat — Sun, 31 Jan 2016 22:09:31 +0000

In reply to Hal, frankly I don't get it.

This is typical for Hal. I posted a comment about Glass Steagall in which I provided links including a quote from Elizabeth Warren admitting that Glass Steagall would not have prevented the 08 crash and Krugman's opinion that Hillary's plan for regulating Wall Street was more comprehensive than Sanders. Yet a couple of weeks later he posted, "The Secretary's stalwarts are the ones who claim the millions of dollars she's collected for giving a handful of speeches to investment bankers play no role in her decision to oppose a new Glass-Steagall. " No Hillary supporter makes that claim. There are many valid reasons to oppose a new Glass Steagall as I laid out in my comment. Just another strawman, just another lie.

I see no purpose or value in a new Glass Steagall. The regulation of Wall Street through an expanded Dodd Frank will be much more effective. There is a legitimate debate to be had on this issue but Hal doesn't want to have it. He's rather just make shit up to insult Hillary supporters.

No, Hillary did not violate

ocean-kat — Sun, 31 Jan 2016 21:39:43 +0000

In reply to Reclassification is no excuse

No, Hillary did not violate any law or regulation that was in effect during her time as SoS. Use of a private email was common at that level of government. Numerous Bush officials had private accounts including Colin Powell and Condi Rice. When Powell was asked what he did with the emails after he left office he said, "I just erased the whole thing." Kerry is the first SoS to exclusively us a government account. Even Jeb Bush had a private email he used during his time as gov of Fl. Of course it's only a scandal when Hillary does it.

I believe government officials should all use a government account. I'm glad the regulations have been tightened up to enforce that. But there is still no evidence that Hillary broke any law or regulation and she shouldn't be condemned for what was fairly common before her.

Ah yes, the "arrogance" card,

PeraclesPlease — Sun, 31 Jan 2016 14:21:57 +0000

In reply to She was part of the

Ah yes, the "arrogance" card, up there with the "entitled", "inevitable" and "dynasty" terms. No, she just simply does what a lot of people in government do, and folks like to make it a bigger deal than needed. Yes, we have a shitty decrepit email & information & security system in the DoD (Manning), NSA (Snowden), State (Hillarygate), and everywhere else in government. 15 years after 9/11 and other infosystems are poorly protected, and there were major breaches of our supposedly "secured" State Department system, which begs the question of whose emails were safer (the answer is probably neither, because they were sending back and forth).

But at least they weren't keeping their nude selfies on iCloud.

She was part of the

HSG — Sun, 31 Jan 2016 12:47:22 +0000

In reply to Hal, frankly I don't get it.

She was a cabinet-level official in the government whether it overclassifies or not. It was her responsibility to abide by the classification rules unless 1) they were illegal and harming our nation, and 2) trying to improve the system from within was unsuccessful or would have been futile. In that case, her duty was to do exactly what Edward Snowden did - blow the whistle. She did neither. For reasons that remain obscure, she chose to flout or was ignorant of the rules and laws pertaining to government information. Not a tough one. I will say this is/was not in any case the deal breaker for me. It's just another example of using poor judgment and (possibly) the arrogance to believe the rules don't matter or don't apply to her.

Hal, frankly I don't get it.

PeraclesPlease — Sun, 31 Jan 2016 12:00:27 +0000

In reply to Thanks Flavius. I wasn't

Hal, frankly I don't get it. Both OceanKat & I posted links (oh right, I pasted the whole article) referring to the gross overclassification of information by government - not only the opposite of transparency, but absurdities to send people to jail - and you don't say fuck all, you just continue your la-la-la happy land comments as if nothing happened.

And at the same time, you're acting contradictory by praising Snowden for releasing classified info and trashing Hillary for *possibly* having information on a *partially secured* server. So you want both Snowden and Clinton to go to jail, or you want both to be free? Hard to have it both ways.

Me, I see a very screwed up system and am happy to have Snowden releasing info (as he seems to have done so fairly responsibly), and see people misusing classified info with impunity that dwarfs any risk that Hillary has posed (and I see how everyone from Republicans to Bernie fans is into using any crap innuendo and cherry-picked misleading iota of data to blow up into a scandal on Hillary, so even though in general I think it's bad to have data on private servers, I also think it's dangerous to give vengeful ill-intentioned bastards free rein to traipse through any and every comment she's made over the years trying to create an explosive sound-bite. If the Republicans hadn't manufactured the Benghazi scandal, I'm sure someone on the "left" would have.)

Thanks Flavius. I wasn't

HSG — Sun, 31 Jan 2016 03:32:59 +0000

In reply to Hal,

Thanks Flavius. I wasn't going to respond to the "yawn" but frankly I don't get it. I mean why don't you think it's a big deal that Clinton held classified information on an unsecured server? I'll add that she doesn't think Edward Snowden deserves any clemency for divulging classified information because he was acting on behalf of our country and in fact did an awful lot of good and no harm as a result.