Monday, March 5, 2018

get ready to bail out the banks

When Donald Trump's tax 'reform' bill was passed, at least there were murmurings of love and light -- the all-but-universally-discredited trickle-down economics dontcha know -- as the government shafted the populace and the obscenely rich were burdened with still-more-obscene riches.

But the Congress is now poised to shaft anew, this time without benefit of the K-Y Jelly it once applied.
Ten years after a financial crisis rocked the nation’s economy, the Senate is poised to pass legislation that would roll back some of the safeguards Congress put into place to prevent a relapse.
The move to alter some key aspects of the Dodd-Frank law has overwhelming Republican support and enough Democratic backing that it’s expected to gain the 60 votes necessary to clear the Senate. Several Democratic lawmakers facing tough re-election races this year have broken ranks with Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y. and Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass....
Commercial banks are major players on Capitol Hill, spending $66 million on lobbying Congress last year and $44 million on federal election campaigns in the previous election cycle, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, which tracks campaign spending. About two-thirds of the money went to Republican campaigns and about a third to Democratic campaigns.
A repeat of the 2008 "Great Recession" that no one dared to call "Depression II" is now all but in hand. Let's see if the electorate will bail the banks out again.

1 comment: