Why, the Wall Street clowns, of course. And not just any clowns....only a select few earn his undivided attention. According to Tim Geithner'sphone records (the Associated Press did a review of Geithner's calendar under the Freedom of Information Act), JP Morgan Chase, and Citigroup make up the small group of all-too-powerful Wall Street bankers lucky enough to have Geithner's ear on demand.
Geithner had more contacts with Citigroup than he did with Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., the lawmaker leading the effort to approve Geithner’s overhaul of the financial system. Geithner's contacts with Blankfein [CEO of Goldman Sachs Group] alone outnumber his contacts with Sen. Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., chairman of the Senate Banking Committee.
Looks like the banksters who got us into this mess, are the ones who are supposedly leading our way out of this mess. Is it any wonder, considering Geithner, who was the chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York - which oversees the institutions that make up the heart of U.S. financial activity - at the time of the crisis, therefore responsible for the regulating that didn't happen on Wall Street, was appointed Treasury Secretary?
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As one man succinctly put it, responding to a Bill O'Reilly tears into Barney Frank thread ("This was fucking great. To see Bill just tear apart Barney 'the shit stain' Frank, was beautiful"),
"the coachmen steered towards the cliff, jumped off, then handed Frank the reigns. Phil Gramm, Alan Greenspan, Bill Clinton, and George Bush are the primary reasons we're in this mess."
Fox, O'Reilly and the Neocons lured Barney Frank into their web by deliberately spreading lies about his contribution to the economic meltdown. Barney Frank, like any normal human being, wanted to correct Bill O'Reilly's "errors" about an event sure to go down in history as one of the worst periods our economy has faced.
Why isn't Bill O'Reilly going after the #1 culprit, PhilGramm? Gramm pushed through historic banking deregulation bills that all but guaranteed this massive meltdown. The Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act eliminated the barriers - by tearing down the walls created by Glass-Steagall - between commercial banks, investment banks, insurance companies, and securities firms. This started a wave of mergers which exposed banks to all kinds of securities they were restricted from owning before this bill.
That wasn't enough for Phil Gramm. He then pushed through the Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000, written by financial industry lobbyists, in order to "protect financial institutions from overregulation" according to Gramm. In other words, this bill, famous for the Enron loophole, completely deregulated "credit default swaps", all $62 trillion dollars worth! The same swaps that are literally responsible for making investment and commercial banks go under.
Besides falsely extending Frank's time as Chairman over the House Finance Services Committee by one year, O'Reilly dug up a Frank quote from something he said five years ago, four years before Frank assumed his position...at a time when the GOP controlled everything from Congress, the House, the Executive Branch to the world!
Does anyone really think Frank's quote from 2003 had anything to do with this fiasco? Yes, Barney Frank may have been wrong about Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and as I said in my previous post, Frank should accept some blame. However by the time Barney Frank took over as Chairman, most of the damage was done, and even though the Democrats won over the House and Senate in 2007, most of their time has been spent in Republican generated gridlock. The bottom line is Barney Frank's contribution to this crisis is negligible in comparison.
Years ago, when I used to watch Bill O'Reilly, I distinctly remember him refer to Barney Frank as perhaps the smartest man he's ever interviewed. O'Reilly said he didn't agree with Barney Frank on anything; however, looked forward to the challenge of interviewing him.
Fast forward to the latest interview. Bill O'Reilly becomes extremely angry right away, refusing to let Barney Frank talk. Why? Because O'Reilly knew if he gave Barney Frank an inch, he would take a mile. He knew that Frank wouldn't let him blame the entire financial meltdown on him and the Democratic party.
Prior to Bill O'Reilly's temper tantrum, O'Reilly lied, and said Barney Frank became Chairman of the House Financial Services Committee(HFSC) in 2006 (9/30 episode). Barney Frank started the position in January of 2007, at the same time, the Democrats won over the House and the Senate. He also quoted Frank from 2003, and tried to apply it to his current position, further blaming him for the crisis.
This goes beyond Bill O'Reilly, although I'm sure O'Reilly enjoyed every moment. Fox News, the mouthpiece for the Republicans, has pegged Barney Frank as the "whipping boy" and the scapegoat for the financial crisis that they caused. Why Barney Frank? Well, aside from being Chairman (HFSC), the position he's held for less than two years, he is gay and we know how the Conservatives love to throw gay people to the lions to either promote their agenda or cover their ass.
Bill O'Reilly was foaming at the mouth and would have loved to call Barney Frank a faggot. However, O'Reilly knew that would be stepping over the line and might ruin this excellent opportunity to blame the Democrats. So, he did the next best thing and attacked Barney Frank's manhood, by calling Frank a coward and telling him that he's not a man, that he didn't "stand up" like a man, knowing that people who were watching, either knew, or would find out, that Barney Frank is gay. All of a sudden through the power of suggestion, O'Reilly's accusations make perfect "sense" to the average ignorant person.
The Neocons understand how important it is to keep the general public in the dark. That's the only way to maintain control and spread their bullying, scapegoating propaganda, essential to maintaining their control. They take advantage of our ignorance and manipulate us through our underlying biases, realizing that repetition of the lie will transform that lie into the "truth". My father, who watches Fox News, told me they replay this interview over and over.
“See, in my line of work you got to keep repeating things over and over and over again for the truth to sink in, to kind of catapult the propaganda." -- George W. Bush.
“Propaganda proceeds by psychological manipulations, character modifications, by creation of stereotypes useful when the time comes - The two great routes that this sub-propaganda takes are the conditioned reflex and the myth” -- Jacques Ellul
Most people don't know all that much about Barney Frank. Most people don't know all that much about the financial crisis. It's easy to find a scapegoat when the public has no idea what's going on.
The Conservatives know Barney Frank is smart and they know he is not a coward. That's why they went for the jugular. Anyone who has watched Barney Frank knows he has no problem standing up for himself and for what he believes, thus the reason they used Bill O'Reilly, the biggest bully on T.V., to do their dirty work.
Is Barney Frank innocent of wrongdoing? Probably not. However, Barney Frank, who has championed the people's rights throughout most of his career, is not even close to being the cause of this mess.
Unfortunately, most people do not know the collapse of the banking industry did not start yesterday. It started thirty-years ago, when Ronald Reagan declared his extreme "free market" ideology and began the process of deregulating as much as he could, making sure his agenda would be carried out for years to come. It continued with Greenspan's wholehearted belief in an unregulated market; his belief in his hero, Ayn Rand and her philosophy of the morality of individual greed; his insistence on keeping interest rates artificially low, and inflating the housing and stock market bubbles...
Just as the U.S. has one of the highest murder rates in the world despite the ultimate punishment, the death penalty, the U.S. also has the highest rate of marijuana use in the world despite some of the harshest penalties.
829,625people were arrested for marijuana law offenses in 2006 for possession and we, the taxpayers are stuck with the multi- billion-dollar bill for these marijuana arrests, which "consume 4.5 million law enforcement hours — the equivalent of taking 112,500 law enforcement officers off the streets". I guess this is part of America's "Tough on Crime" policy...locking up the truly dangerous...terminal patients and chilled out potheads.
Barney Frank (D-Mass.) announced the details of the legislation to eliminate federal criminal sanctions for possession of small amounts of marijuana.
"The U.S. should stop arresting responsible marijuana users. Current laws targeting marijuana users place undue burdens on law enforcement resources, punish ill Americans whose doctors have prescribed the substance and unfairly affect African-Americans, said Frank, flanked by legislators and representatives from advocacy groups." -- Barney Frank
So, why couldn't the billions of dollars we spent/spend on tracking down and prosecuting harmless potheads and sick people, whose only transgression is getting ill, go toward supplying health care for those who legitimately can't afford it? As we all know actions speak louder than words. Although no one likes illness or disease, it seems Americans fail to distinguish between the pathogen and the person unfortunate enough to encounter the pathogen. We've already "settled" the West, therefore, we no longer need to cast aside the weak in order to survive, yet, that's exactly what we do. Once again, I wonder if we've evolved all that much.
A few months ago, Rep. Carolyn B. Maloney introduced the Credit Cardholders' Bill of Rights Act of 2008 (H.R. 5244). The proposed legislation, co-sponsored by Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., chairman of the Financial Services Committee calls for badly needed comprehensive credit card reform.
The bill establishes the following rights for credit card holders:
Cardholders will not be subjected to arbitrary interest rate increases.
Cardholders who pay on time will not be penalized unfairly.
Cardholders will not be subjected to due date gimmicks.
Cardholders will be shielded from misleading terms.
Cardholders may set their own limits on their credit.
Card companies will credit and allocate payments fairly.
Card companies will not impose excessive fees on cardholders.
Card companies will not issue subprime credit cards to people who cannot afford them.
As it stands, credit-card companies are loan-shark companies, maybe even worse. Loan-sharks may break your legs if you don't pay up, however they make that clear from the beginning. Loan-shark companies, on the other hand, dress up the terms making it appear you are getting a great deal and then, sometimes even if you follow the terms, they break your legs anyway. As long as the "loan-shark" industry is allowed to operate free of regulation, "we the people" don't stand a chance.
“The playing field between card companies and cardholders has become very one-sided in recent years. Yet, more and more Americans are turning to their credit cards to help pay bills, buy groceries, and make ends meet in this troubled economy. Instead of looking the other way while Americans fall deeper into debt, Congress can and should take swift action to reform major credit card industry abuses and improve consumer protections for cardholders. The balanced reforms in this legislation will help do just that.” -- Rep. Carolyn B. Maloney
