[jogiba]

The financial sector invested more than $5 billion in political influence purchasing in Washington over the past decade, with as many as 3,000 lobbyists winning deregulation and other policy decisions that led directly to the current financial collapse, according to a 231-page report issued today by Essential Information and the Consumer Education Foundation. The report, "Sold Out: How Wall Street and Washington Betrayed America," shows that, from 1998-2008, Wall Street investment firms, commercial banks, hedge funds, real estate companies and insurance conglomerates made $1.7 billion in political contributions and spent another $3.4 billion on lobbyists, a financial juggernaut aimed at undercutting federal regulation. During the period 1998-2008: * Commercial banks spent more than $154 million on campaign contributions, while investing $363 million in officially registered lobbying; * Insurance companies donated more than $218 million and spent more than $1.1 billion on lobbying; and * Securities firms invested more than $504 million in campaign contributions and an additional $576 million in lobbying. Nearly 3,000 officially registered federal lobbyists worked for the industry in 2007 alone. These companies drew heavily from government in choosing their lobbyists. Surveying 20 leading financial firms, "Sold Out" finds 142 of the lobbyists they employed from 1998-2008 were previously high-ranking officials or employees in the Executive Branch or Congress. The report documents a dozen distinct deregulatory moves that, together, led to the financial meltdown. These include prohibitions on regulating financial derivatives; the repeal of regulatory barriers between commercial banks and investment banks; a voluntary regulation scheme for big investment banks; and federal refusal to act in order to stop predatory subprime lending. "The report details, step-by-step, how Washington systematically sold out to Wall Street," says Harvey Rosenfield, president of the Consumer Education Foundation, a California-based non-profit organization. "Depression-era programs that would have prevented the financial meltdown that began last year were dismantled, and the warnings of those who foresaw disaster were drowned in an ocean of political money. Americans were betrayed, and we are paying a high price -- trillions of dollars -- for that betrayal." "Congress and the Executive Branch," says Robert Weissman of Essential Information and the lead author of the report, "responded to the legal bribes from the financial sector, rolling back common-sense standards, barring honest regulators from issuing rules to address emerging problems and trashing enforcement efforts. The progressive erosion of regulatory restraining walls led to a flood of bad loans, and a tsunami of bad bets based on those bad loans. Now, there is wreckage across the financial landscape."

http://www.prudentmoney.com/Prudent-Money-Daily-Blog/$5-Billion-in-Political-Contributions-Bought-Wall-Street-Freedom-from-Regulation-Restraint-Report-Finds.html

[shooz]

And that's not all folks!!!!!!............

That's just what can be seen on paper!
Think of all the little trips, perks, luxury hotel stays, hidden stock options, paid talks at swank think tanks, open job offers...............................................................
Then there's the plethora of donations from various foundations.
So many other ways.........................................................................

It's nice to be a lord, in service to the kings.

[jolepp]

A similar figure was put forward in the film "Inside job".

[kenafein]

Yeah I'm sure it's much higher than that, with bribes to all levels of government, not just Washington. It is amazing what people will sell out their countrymen for, often it's not that much money on an individual basis, but money is needed to run campaigns. So we actually only have the opportunity to vote for corrupt people, who take bribes, in this country.

[GeneV]

An article I came across in which Pres. Clinton says he is sorry he listened to Summers and Rubin about derivative regulation. I wonder when President Obama is going to decide he is sorry he listened to some of the same people. President Clinton: I Was Wrong To Listen To Rubin and Summers On Derivatives | Crooks and Liars

[jeffkrol]

An article I came across in which Pres. Clinton says he is sorry he listened to Summers and Rubin about derivative regulation. I wonder when President Obama is going to decide he is sorry he listened to some of the same people. President Clinton: I Was Wrong To Listen To Rubin and Summers On Derivatives | Crooks and Liars

Yep, what seperates "liberals" from conservatives...........

"Being a Conservative means never to having to say your sorry"

Love means never having to say you're sorry - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[jogiba]

As chairman of the Senate Banking Committee from 1995 through 2000, Gramm was Washington's most prominent and outspoken champion of financial deregulation. He played a leading role in writing and pushing through Congress the 1999 repeal of the Depression-era Glass-Steagall Act, which separated commercial banks from Wall Street. He also inserted a key provision into the 2000 Commodity Futures Modernization Act that exempted over-the-counter derivatives like credit-default swaps from regulation by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. Credit-default swaps took down AIG, which has cost the U.S. $150 billion thus far.

Read more: Phil Gramm - 25 People to Blame for the Financial Crisis - TIME #ixzz1a8cVYpBJ