Just Blame Bill Clinton?
I’m late in blogging about this but there was an interesting article in Sunday Times Magazine on Bill Clinton. The part I found most intriguing was about the regulatory acts that the Clinton administration was responsible for:
“One thing that thrived during Clinton’s presidency, the economy, has wilted of late. The economic boom of the 1990s created nearly 23 million new jobs during his eight years, but today, the economy is shedding hundreds of thousands of jobs a month. While this has stoked nostalgia for the prosperity of the Clinton era, it has also focused new scrutiny on his record. What role did Clinton’s policies play in creating the conditions that led to the Great Recession?
When the subject came up during our conversation in Chappaqua, Clinton calmly dissected the case against him and acknowledged that in at least some particulars his critics have a point. In almost clinical form, as if back at Oxford as a Rhodes scholar, he broke down the case against him into three allegations: first, that he used the Community Reinvestment Act to force small banks into making loans to low-income depositors who were too risky. Second, that he signed the deregulatory Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act in 1999, repealing part of the Depression-era Glass-Steagall Act that prohibited commercial banks from engaging in the investment business. And third, that he failed to regulate the complex financial instruments known as derivatives.
Interesting read….
Read more: The mellowing of Willaim Jefferson Clinton