How to Get Glass-Steagall Back

[dcarrigg]

The Return to Prudent Banking Act of 2011 is a bill that was introduced to the House of Representatives on April 12th and is currently waiting to be considered by the House Financial Services Committee.

The bill is:

To repeal certain provisions of the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act and revive the separation between commercial banking
and the securities business, in the manner provided in the Banking Act of 1933, the so-called ‘‘Glass-Steagall Act’’, and for other purposes.

It slipped my mind to post the text of the bill earlier. Track it at THOMAS by selecting bill number and searching for H.R. 1489.

Things can get cynical here about politics, but this should not be too controversial for this crowd. There will be those that just say 'it's never going to happen.' There will be others that will remind you of additional problems. Of course the fraction kept in reserve is too low. Of course FIRE money will tilt the odds against it. Of course there are myriad other problems. This is just one step.

The fix must start somewhere. What better place than here; what better time than now?

1. Call your legislator - let them know you're watching.
   
2. Spread the word.
   
3. If you live in any of the House leadership districts it's vital that you let them know.
   
4. It is also very important if you live in Alabama's 6th, Massachusetts' 4th district, or if your congress(wo)man is on the Financial Services Committee.
   
5. Thank Congresswoman Marcy Kaptur if you get the chance, especially if you're in Ohio's 9th.
   
6. Post your results here.
   
7. Link to this post on other sites.

I will edit this post to make it more useful and as additional information becomes available.

[c1ue]

Re: How to Get Glass-Steagall Back

Unfortunately you left out the most important step: removing banksters and their money from the political process.

Until that is done, anything else is a waste of time.

[dcarrigg]

Re: How to Get Glass-Steagall Back

Unfortunately you left out the most important step: removing banksters and their money from the political process.

Until that is done, anything else is a waste of time.

I added it in. There are other groups that fight to fix campaign finance practices.

Waste your time responding to this with despair, or write an e-mail to your congressman. The time commitment is identical.

Act or do not. The choice is yours.

[c1ue]

Re: How to Get Glass-Steagall Back

Waste your time responding to this with despair, or write an e-mail to your congressman. The time commitment is identical.

Act or do not. The choice is yours.

My act is to wait for the inertia of the system to lead to its destruction.

The worse, the better.

[lektrode]

Re: How to Get Glass-Steagall Back

My act is to wait for the inertia of the system to lead to its destruction.

The worse, the better.

perhaps a bit overly cynical, Mr c1ue?

methinks dcarrigg is correct on this one, since if we all just sit around watching as the aristocracy loads up their 275foot 'lifeboats' then we deserve our fate, wouldnt you agree?

[Serge_Tomiko]

Re: How to Get Glass-Steagall Back

I added it in. There are other groups that fight to fix campaign finance practices.

Waste your time responding to this with despair, or write an e-mail to your congressman. The time commitment is identical.

Act or do not. The choice is yours.

You can never fight their money, you must simply remove it.

Some ways are quite simple, like limiting the income one can derive from usurious activities. Even a cap of say $5,000,000 per year would do wonders to reconstruct society.

But I am opposed to democracy, and I recognize that no matter what kind of government - the threat of plutocracy always exists. The first step to understanding how and why societies become corrupt is to disregard all ridiculous notions like a particular form of government is ideal at all times for all people everywhere. It's just not true.

[Shakespear]

Re: How to Get Glass-Steagall Back

I think you have it just right Serge.

Problem as I see it is that people get their "world view" not from critical thinking but from Hollywood movies or their equivalents. Then to have a useful discussion with someone like that is simply impossible.

[c1ue]

Re: How to Get Glass-Steagall Back

perhaps a bit overly cynical, Mr c1ue?

methinks dcarrigg is correct on this one, since if we all just sit around watching as the aristocracy loads up their 275foot 'lifeboats' then we deserve our fate, wouldnt you agree?

Voting is irrelevant so long as the vast majority of voters are ignorant.

I've been watching the rise of the Tea Party as the latest example of astroturfing - and I only expect it to get worse. So long as there is so much money flying around and a dearth of contrarian principled leaders - probably not a coincidence - the actions of a tiny slice of enlightened individuals will not make any difference.

On the other hand, as things get worse, more and more of the ignorant will start to question.

Eventually enough will lose their ignorance to make a difference, but all along this path will be the budding tyrants who promise salvation in return for sacrificed liberty.

[chr5648]

Re: How to Get Glass-Steagall Back

Here are some interesting thoughts on the tea party

http://www.halfsigma.com/2010/08/the...-movement.html

http://www.halfsigma.com/2010/02/the...stmarxist.html

I've recently found this blog, alot of the ideas seem interesting.


The tea party will ultimately fail because the math and logic of a democratic voting is not in their favor. Their election into the congress was essentially a fluke of human emotions.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Median_voter_theorem

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hotelling%27s_law

[dcarrigg]

Re: How to Get Glass-Steagall Back

I have to say that I'm a bit surprised at how much hot air and how little action comes out of here. A small, but actionable activity arrives and the conversation degrades to debating the finer philosophical points of the demerits of democracy.

Ok. Democracy's not perfect. Semantics mean something. Entropy wins in the end. In the long run we're all dead.

Can we agree on that and do something about this?

Or are we going to just hoard our gold and cry doom like a bunch of misfit teens brooding in the peanut gallery?

[c1ue]

Re: How to Get Glass-Steagall Back

Or are we going to just hoard our gold and cry doom like a bunch of misfit teens brooding in the peanut gallery?

I applaud your sentiment, but frankly there isn't enough suffering even now to make enough of the idiot American population really desire significant change. What little there was, was being neatly extinguished by Mr. "Hope and Change".

As someone who's examined failed revolutions at various points in the past 500 years, it is simply amazing just how much punishment must be endured before enough people are willing to really sacrifice for change.

For every Lenin or American Revolution, there are dozens if not hundreds of failures.

[lektrode]

Re: How to Get Glass-Steagall Back

....Ok. Democracy's not perfect. Semantics mean something. Entropy wins in the end. In the long run we're all dead.

Can we agree on that and do something about this?

Or are we going to just hoard our gold and cry doom like a bunch of misfit teens brooding in the peanut gallery?

if it all goes as bad as some seem to think, then ALL THE GOLD ONE HAS WILL BE PERT NEAR WORTHLESS....

why?

cuz unless one is more or less _self_ sufficient (for months, to years into the future), then WHAT IN HELL COULD YA BUY WITH ALL YER GOLD ?....

when the rest of us are either starving, homeless, too-damn-sick-to-give-a-shit or have been 'detained' by homeland 'security' for mouthing off, protesting violently (when hunger makes you fight to survive) or flatly refusing to goto work on critical gov/municipal functions cuz yer union has more ability to support you/yer family than the phreakin 'authorities' do?

gold,silver and pert near all other 'investments' (cept for farmland, animals that can survive on it, WATER, off-grid-capabilities, and a stockpile of drygoods, bullets, meds, liquor, etc etc) WILL BE VIRTUALLY ****WORTHLESS**** without HUMAN CAPITAL TO BACK IT UP (read: yer own private army - or a bunch of kids/wives/cuzzins that can shoot straight ;)

so i really wonder about the mentality that thinks gold will solve the problems WE all are facing - might buy some time, but... just how long can ya eat PM's ?

so methinks dcarrigg, that YES WE MUST DO SOMETHING MORE THAN JUST TRY TO PROFIT OFF WHATS GOIN DOWN - or there wont be anything to spend it one and if the good ole USA collapses?

WHY would we wanna live thru all that means, anyway?

dunno if i would - not once my savings/preparations ran out, anyway - it would be a short romp to MADMAX VILLE for most americans, i can assure you.

and the bluestate, urban neighborhoods will be the first to erupt into anarchy, if/when it happens - so i dont know what the liberal/progessives that have backed most of the policies of the past 50 year that have brought us to the present precipice are thinking - what? - the .gov is gonna ride in on white chargers and rescue the peasants while the protected/tenured class holes up in their leafy-green gaited communities with all their comfy services on 'emergency schedules' but otherwise wont have to suffer the consequences of the political aristocracy's abdication of resposibility for it all???

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!

so yeah - i think WE ought to do something on this topic - so... with that in mind, i have finally scored a copy of INSIDE JOB (paid for, BTW) and intend on making a bunch of little video-vignettes with which to PUBLICIZE THE ISSUES RAISED UNTIL THE DC ARISTOCRACY ADDRESSES THE BIGGEST CRIMINAL ACT OF THE LAST 3000 YEARS (at least).

cuz at some point, NOTHING ELSE MATTERS that we get some kind of JUSTICE before these bunch of thugs can spend/enjoy all that money they STOLE FROM THE REST OF US.

thats why.

[charliebrown]

Re: How to Get Glass-Steagall Back

Done e-mail sent to Peter Roskam 6th district Il.

People on this site are asking for the system to fail. That would not be good. I don't care how much gold they have. it will hurt everyone very badly. violence, pestilence and famine are assured.
We have to try to reform what we have.

lektrode is correct.

[c1ue]

Re: How to Get Glass-Steagall Back

People on this site are asking for the system to fail. That would not be good. I don't care how much gold they have. it will hurt everyone very badly. violence, pestilence and famine are assured.
We have to try to reform what we have.

You misunderstand.

Even I - Mr. Glass Half Empty - has never said the US is going to become Somalia.

Chile is a fine example of a relatively wealthy 3rd world banana republic - The US is becoming an even wealthier one.

It is unlikely that being poor in a rich US is going to convert into starvation, violence, and disease unless you look 100 years forward.

The one thing that has never happens is major change without suffering - and the suffering just isn't there.

It is coming, and those more alert are aware of how things have gotten worse but that is a far cry from reality at least at this time.

[subtly]

Re: How to Get Glass-Steagall Back

Lektrode,

I'm with ya...we gotta try.

But, the (real) change we hope for has zero chance of happening as long as the proletariat is distracted and divided. I try to pass on information to friends and co-workers the information I've gleaned from iTulip and other good sources. Usually within a couple of minutes into the conversation I hear phrases like: "but those damned Dems..."; "but those damned Republicans..."; "if it weren't for the lazy poor people..."; "if the rich weren't so greedy...". The Bull Horn is doing it's job well. A sane, serious, national discussion on what really needs to be done can't even get off the ground because of these mind-sets.

You have a really inspiring rant, except for bringing up the obviously troubling issue of government dependency in urban centers and the liberals/progressives. If you believe it was "the liberal/progessives that have backed most of the policies of the past 50 year that have brought us to the present precipice" and only (or mostly) them, you are part of the problem and just as brain-washed as the rest of us sheople. If you don't believe that, why take a shot at them here? Doing this, you are automatically turning off 30%(?) 40%(?) 50%(?) of the people, and contributing to the divisiveness that's crippled us.

We aren't getting our economy back unless we (the sheople) stay on topic.

Subtly