On Jan 3, 2:39 pm, Kurt Ullman wrote:
In article ,

bud-- wrote:
The last president that balanced the budget was .... let me see....musta
been a long time ago...Clinton. Bush 2 inherited a surplus that was
paying down the national debt. Didn't last long.

Revisionist history.

Revisionist? Clinton surpluses were paying down the national debt. The
surpluses under Clinton were in large part the result of (gasp) tax
increases.

The surplus had peaked by FY 2000 and was almost
gone by FY 2001 (starting a full month before the election).

Cite.


And in the recent past, we had the savings and loan debacle, which was
about
as regulated an industry as you can get.

That's pretty funny. Deregulation of S&Ls was a major cause. Most
deregulation was under Reagan.

Nope. There were three major tides in the S&L.

What I wrote is what I have read from multiple sources.

It is consistent with
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Savings_and_loan_crisis
While wiki is not always right, I suspect articles like these are
heavily edited (and may wind up locked).


There was also inadequate supervision by regulators, and in some cases
political interference. A famous one involved McCain (don't remember who
else, but also democarats).

McCain was the only GOP member of the Keating Five

McCain is a side issue and I said democrats were involved. McCain is,
I think, the only current senator involved and a recognizable name. I
could have looked up "Keating" - it is still probably a rather well
know name, and example of political interference which the intended
point of the McCain reference.



Some major causes of the crash:
- Repeal of Glass-Steagall, which kept previously kept banks, investment
houses and insurance companies as separate entities. This came out of
the Great Depression. Apparently we forgot its lessons. Repealed 1999
largely on the efforts of Phil Gramm (signed by Clinton).

Passed Congress (as required) by large (bipartisan0 votes in both
Houses.

Significant parts of the underpinning of the disaster were
bipartisan.
One of the problems was believing Greenspan was God.

But I believe republicans, with an active hostility to regulation,
contributed more. A major player was Phil Gramm. And Bush 2 was
adverse to regulation.


- Ban on regulating derivatives. Snuck into an appropriation bill by
Phil Gramm.

Yes those Evil Republicans once again "sneaking" things passed the
Dems. Just read the damn things or shut up (and that goes for both sides
of the aisle).

It was an appropriations bill of something like 15,000 lines. "Just
read the damn thing" doesn't work so well. And I don't know about this
one, but it is common for appropriations bills to appear shortly
before they are voted on.

Gramm snuck the provision into the bill.


So, maybe you have not learned and still believe in "self regulating
markets".

But the record is also ripe with indications that governments manage
to mess it as bad.

Governments can and sometimes do mangle things.

The crash was largely the result of lack of regulation. Also an
ideology that regulation is bad, and not using the regulatory power
that was there.

(And the usual suspects - greed, fraud, moral hazard, immoral
behavior.)

--
bud--