A bit of history from late 1999:

http://www.nytimes.com/1999/11/05/business/congress-passes-wide-ranging-bill-eas...

    [snip]

Larry Summers who of course in now back in charge, said at the time:

    ''Today Congress voted to update the rules that have governed financial services since the Great Depression and replace them with a system for the 21st century,'' Treasury Secretary Lawrence H. Summers said. ''This historic legislation will better enable American companies to compete in the new economy.''

    [snip]

Administration officials and many Republicans and Democrats said the measure would save consumers billions of dollars and was necessary to keep up with trends in both domestic and international banking. Some institutions, like Citigroup, already have banking, insurance and securities arms but could have been forced to divest their insurance underwriting under existing law. Many foreign banks already enjoy the ability to enter the securities and insurance industries.

    [snip]

    The opponents of the measure gloomily predicted that by unshackling banks and enabling them to move more freely into new kinds of financial activities, the new law could lead to an economic crisis down the road when the marketplace is no longer growing briskly.

    ''I think we will look back in 10 years' time and say we should not have done this but we did because we forgot the lessons of the past, and that that which is true in the 1930's is true in 2010,'' said Senator Byron L. Dorgan, Democrat of North Dakota. ''I wasn't around during the 1930's or the debate over Glass-Steagall. But I was here in the early 1980's when it was decided to allow the expansion of savings and loans. We have now decided in the name of modernization to forget the lessons of the past, of safety and of soundness.''

    Senator Paul Wellstone, Democrat of Minnesota, said that Congress had ''seemed determined to unlearn the lessons from our past mistakes.''

    ''Scores of banks failed in the Great Depression as a result of unsound banking practices, and their failure only deepened the crisis,'' Mr. Wellstone said. ''Glass-Steagall was intended to protect our financial system by insulating commercial banking from other forms of risk. It was one of several stabilizers designed to keep a similar tragedy from recurring. Now Congress is about to repeal that economic stabilizer without putting any comparable safeguard in its place.''

    [snip]

    The White House has estimated the legislation could save consumers as much as $18 billion a year as new financial conglomerates gain economies of scale and cut costs.

    Other experts have disputed those estimates as overly optimistic, and said that the bulk of any profits seen from the deregulation of financial services would be returned not to customers but to shareholders.

monkey_man wrote on Mar 25^th, 2009 at 4:57pm:




Damn right. I wonder is it a coincidence that in a 47 year career the Stones have only ever performed in the US in two years out of twelve in which there have been Presidential elections - 1964 and 1972.  Thats NINE election years in a row in which they've avoided playing there. Doesn't augur well for that "50th anniversary tour" in 2012!

Maybe they like to get as far away from it as they can as well!

(Oddly enough, even though our elections dont take place on a 'fixed' date, they havent played the UK either in an election year since 1966 - there have been 9 election years since then)

the stones are referenced in the da vinci code several times......

fuman wrote on Mar 25^th, 2009 at 5:03pm:

Hmm, I've yet to see a post of yours outside this thread...

Saint Sway wrote on Mar 25^th, 2009 at 5:44pm:


LOL. No, contrary to popular belief, I do have a life!

I just wanted to be a bit ironic by hijacking a politics thread with something Stones-related...

Gazza fear not my friend. When the Stones are actually doing something worth talking about besides banging 21 year old Russian cocktail waitresses and generally acting the fool then this thread will be a distant memory.

My interest in this political thread is akin to your interest in the Springsteen thread. I could care less about Bruce Springsteen, but I certainly can appreciate your appreciation of him. Likewise my appreciation of political discourse.

So bottom line is that this thread will die on the vine once the boys announce something worth talking about. In the meantime I enjoy discussing politics with some posters here that I have become friends with over the course of the last decade. Even the Obamadrones!


So on with the slamming of liberals!



So this Global Warming/Climate Change myth isn't designed to garner more centralized power for the govenment, huh? Well then perhaps some enlightend lib can explain what the hell is going on in the UK these days. This is some seriously scary shit my friends, and to just lay down and swallow this load of utter horseshit pseudo-science that the pushers of this myth want you to believe is to willingly, blindly, and stupidly surrender your liberty. In other words to be dronelike in your idiotic worship at the alter of a big all knowing and all controlling government. Liberals are nothing more than sheeple on this issue.





Read the scary as hell Orwellian article here---->http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1164091/Council-uses-spy-plane-thermal-i...


Wake up sheeple! You're being lied to!


Riffy

PS-And to all you liberals that would even attempt to defend this idiocy let me ask you a question. Would you want Big Daddy government to drive down your block with a drug sniffing contraption that may well lead to your arrest because you have a joint in your sock drawer? Global Warming/Climate Change is a myth to garner more power! Wake up and smell the tyranny folks.

monkey_man wrote on Mar 25^th, 2009 at 10:56pm:



Now MM your equivicating here and destorting what I've said. Yes the Global Warming/Climate Change hoax is about government grants. However, that is for the professers and government paid research scientists that prop this myth up. In the end though the government uses their faulty pseudo-science research papers to exercise more power over the individual. So, yes, it's both, and it's pathetic that more people don't do some research on this hoax for themselves. These government granted professors and scientists use the myth to keep their cash flowing, and the government get's it's hands deeper into our liberty and pockets. It's one hand washing the other.


Riffy

Some Guy wrote on Mar 26^th, 2009 at 11:52am:



Agreed. And no teleprompter.

I really cannot figure out what people REALLY object to with Obama.

Examiner Editorial: Expanded Americorps has stench of authoritarianism
Examiner Editorial 3/26/09

With almost no public attention, both chambers of Congress in the past week advanced an alarming expansion of the Americorps national service plan, with the number of federally funded community-service jobs increasing from 75,000 to 250,000 at a cost of $5.7 billion. Lurking behind the feel-good rhetoric spouted by the measure’s advocates is a bill that upon closer inspection reveals multiple provisions that together create a strong odor of creepy authoritarianism.
The House passed the measure overwhelmingly, while only 14 senators had the sense and courage to vote against it on a key procedural motion. Every legislator who either voted for this bill or didn’t vote at all has some serious explaining to do.

Last summer, then-candidate Barack Obama threw civil liberties to the wind when he proposed “a civilian national security force that’s just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded” as the regular military. The expanded Americorps is not quite so disturbing, but a number of provisions in the bill raise serious concerns.

To begin with, the legislation threatens the voluntary nature of Americorps by calling for consideration of “a workable, fair and reasonable mandatory service requirement for all able young people.” It anticipates the possibility of requiring “all individuals in the United States” to perform such service, including elementary school students.

The bill also summons up unsettling memories of World War II-era paramilitary groups by saying the new program should “combine the best practices of civilian service with the best aspects of military service,” while establishing “campuses” that serve as “operational headquarters,” complete with “superintendents” and “uniforms” for all participants. It allows for the elimination of all age restrictions in order to involve Americans at all stages of life. And, it calls for the creation of “a permanent cadre” in a “National Community Civilian Corps.”

But that’s not all. The bill also calls for “youth engagement zones” in which “service learning” is “a mandatory part of the curriculum in all of the secondary schools served by the local educational agency.”

This updated form of voluntary community service is also to be “integrated into the science, technology, engineering and mathematics curricula” at all levels of schooling. Sounds like a government curriculum for government-approved “service learning,” which is nothing less than indoctrination.

Now, ask yourself if Congress members who voted for this monstrosity had a clue what they were voting for. If not, they’re guilty of dereliction of duty. If they did, the implications are truly frightening.

When the White House put out a call for town hall questions, it might not have been expecting this.

The more than 92,000 people who responded either have Cheech and Chong senses of humor or there is a deep concern in America — undetected by the media — about the decriminalization of marijuana, its possible use for medicinal purposes and its potential as a new source of tax revenue.

Given the opportunity to say what’s really on their minds without going through the filter of the mainstream media, people “buzzed up” a series of questions that seemed to suggest broad interest in legalizing marijuana and taxing it.

In this moment of national economic crisis, the top four questions under the heading of “Financial security” concerned marijuana; on the budget, people voted up questions about marijuana to positions 1-4; marijuana was in the first and third positions under “jobs”; people boosted a plug for legalizing marijuana to No. 2 under “health care reform.” And questions about decriminalizing pot occupied spots 1 and 2 under “green jobs and energy.”

After taking questions lower on the list, Obama addressed the pot issue head on, noting the huge number of questions about marijuana legalization and remarking with a chuckle, “I don't know what that says about the online audience."

"The answer is no, I don't think that is a good strategy to grow our economy," he said, as the audience in the room applauded and joined him in a laugh.

It seems part of the popularity of marijuana questions was fueled by NORML, the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, which was urging its members to vote for questions supporting the legalization of cannabis.

“WhiteHouse.gov is once again asking the public to pose questions directly to President Obama via its ‘Open For Questions‘ service.,” the organization said on its website. “The topic of this week’s forum is the national economy, and not surprisingly, many of you have already put forward questions to the president regarding the taxation and regulation of cannabis.”

“Please take a moment right now to log on the WhiteHouse.gov/OpenForQuestions and vote for the questions above, as well as others pertaining to the need to regulate cannabis. Let the president know that millions of American voters believe that the time has come to tax and regulate marijuana. Help us send the White House a message our elected leaders can’t ignore,” the statement said.

Some Guy wrote on Mar 26^th, 2009 at 3:17pm:

You actually watched his town hall event? I had a sock drawer to arrange, lint to dispel & emails from Nigeria to answer. It still sounds like I had a more interesting day than YOU!