Phil Gramm Cracker - Cracks the Code
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Phil Gramm Guru will Burst McCain Bubble
If you didn't know he's McCain's adviser...a crook.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phil_Gramm
Years before Phil Gramm was a McCain campaign adviser and a lobbyist for a Swiss bank at the center of the housing credit crisis, he pulled a sly maneuver in the Senate that helped create today's subprime meltdown.
By David Corn
May 28, 2008
In response, the House Democratic leadership stripped him of his position on the committee. He won re-election to his House seat again in 1982. Following his reelection, Gramm resigned his House seat on January 5, 1983, forcing a mid-term special election. Gramm ran in that election on February 12, 1983 to fill the vacancy that he had created, but as a Republican. Winning, he became the first Republican to represent the district since its creation, and after he left the House, the seat was retained for the Republican party (by Joe Barton).
"We have sort of become a nation of whiners. You just hear this constant whining, complaining about a loss of competitiveness.
A guy who helped screw up the global financial system could end up in charge of US economic policy. Talk about a market failure.
Eight years ago, as part of a decades-long anti-regulatory crusade, Gramm pulled a sly legislative maneuver that greased the way to the multibillion-dollar subprime meltdown. Yet has Gramm been banished from the corridors of power? Reviled as the villain who bankrupted Middle America? Hardly. Now a well-paid executive at a Swiss bank, Gramm cochairs Sen. John McCain's presidential campaign and advises the Republican candidate on economic matters. He's been mentioned as a possible Treasury secretary should McCain win.
http://209.85.173.104/search?q=cache:f2UEFhwS1r4J:www.motherjones.com/news/feature/2008/07/foreclosure-phil.html+Phil+Gramm&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=6&gl=us
Enron, a generous contributor to Gramm - that exempted energy trading from regulatory oversight, allowing Enron to run rampant, wreck the California electricity market, and cost consumers billions before it collapsed. (For Gramm, Enron was a family affair. Eight years earlier, his wife, Wendy Gramm, as cftc chairwoman, had pushed through a rule excluding Enron's energy futures contracts from government oversight. Wendy later joined the Houston-based company's board, and in the following years her Enron salary and stock income brought between $915,000 and $1.8 million into the Gramm household.)
the Enron loophole was small potatoes compared to the devastation that unregulated swaps would unleash. Credit default swaps are essentially insurance policies covering the losses on securities in the event of a default. Financial institutions buy them to protect themselves if an investment they hold goes south. It's like bookies trading bets, with banks and hedge funds gambling on whether an investment (say, a pile of subprime mortgages bundled into a security) will succeed or fail. Because of the swap-related provisions of Gramm's bill - which were supported by Fed chairman Alan Greenspan and Treasury secretary Larry Summers - $62 trillion market (nearly four times the size of the entire US stock market) remained utterly unregulated, meaning no one made sure the banks and hedge funds had the assets to cover the losses they guaranteed.
In 1981, Gramm attended Democratic Caucus budget meetings and then secretly shared their strategy with Republicans to help pass newly inaugurated President Ronald Reagan's budget. Sleaze bag.
McCain says Gramm is his economic guru.
http://209.85.173.104/search?q=cache:f2UEFhwS1r4J:www.motherjones.com/news/feature/2008/07/foreclosure-phil.html+Phil+Gramm&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=6&gl=us
Smart fearless journalism
Gramm is Restructuring our Economy Boy Howdy
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0308/9246.html
If you didn't know he's McCain's adviser...a crook.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phil_Gramm
Years before Phil Gramm was a McCain campaign adviser and a lobbyist for a Swiss bank at the center of the housing credit crisis, he pulled a sly maneuver in the Senate that helped create today's subprime meltdown.
By David Corn
May 28, 2008
In response, the House Democratic leadership stripped him of his position on the committee. He won re-election to his House seat again in 1982. Following his reelection, Gramm resigned his House seat on January 5, 1983, forcing a mid-term special election. Gramm ran in that election on February 12, 1983 to fill the vacancy that he had created, but as a Republican. Winning, he became the first Republican to represent the district since its creation, and after he left the House, the seat was retained for the Republican party (by Joe Barton).
"We have sort of become a nation of whiners. You just hear this constant whining, complaining about a loss of competitiveness.
A guy who helped screw up the global financial system could end up in charge of US economic policy. Talk about a market failure.
Eight years ago, as part of a decades-long anti-regulatory crusade, Gramm pulled a sly legislative maneuver that greased the way to the multibillion-dollar subprime meltdown. Yet has Gramm been banished from the corridors of power? Reviled as the villain who bankrupted Middle America? Hardly. Now a well-paid executive at a Swiss bank, Gramm cochairs Sen. John McCain's presidential campaign and advises the Republican candidate on economic matters. He's been mentioned as a possible Treasury secretary should McCain win.
http://209.85.173.104/search?q=cache:f2UEFhwS1r4J:www.motherjones.com/news/feature/2008/07/foreclosure-phil.html+Phil+Gramm&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=6&gl=us
Enron, a generous contributor to Gramm - that exempted energy trading from regulatory oversight, allowing Enron to run rampant, wreck the California electricity market, and cost consumers billions before it collapsed. (For Gramm, Enron was a family affair. Eight years earlier, his wife, Wendy Gramm, as cftc chairwoman, had pushed through a rule excluding Enron's energy futures contracts from government oversight. Wendy later joined the Houston-based company's board, and in the following years her Enron salary and stock income brought between $915,000 and $1.8 million into the Gramm household.)
the Enron loophole was small potatoes compared to the devastation that unregulated swaps would unleash. Credit default swaps are essentially insurance policies covering the losses on securities in the event of a default. Financial institutions buy them to protect themselves if an investment they hold goes south. It's like bookies trading bets, with banks and hedge funds gambling on whether an investment (say, a pile of subprime mortgages bundled into a security) will succeed or fail. Because of the swap-related provisions of Gramm's bill - which were supported by Fed chairman Alan Greenspan and Treasury secretary Larry Summers - $62 trillion market (nearly four times the size of the entire US stock market) remained utterly unregulated, meaning no one made sure the banks and hedge funds had the assets to cover the losses they guaranteed.
In 1981, Gramm attended Democratic Caucus budget meetings and then secretly shared their strategy with Republicans to help pass newly inaugurated President Ronald Reagan's budget. Sleaze bag.
McCain says Gramm is his economic guru.
http://209.85.173.104/search?q=cache:f2UEFhwS1r4J:www.motherjones.com/news/feature/2008/07/foreclosure-phil.html+Phil+Gramm&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=6&gl=us
Smart fearless journalism
Gramm is Restructuring our Economy Boy Howdy
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0308/9246.html