A reminder on Phil Gramm as a senator.

[chelsea0011]

http://www.ontheissues.org/senate/Phil_Gramm.htm

His work for exemption for Enron from Fed regs is especially nice.

[blogslut]

1. And let's not forget his part in the recent sub-prime mortgage crisis

The Gramm-Leach-Bliley_Act

[freesqueeze]

2. I saw Gramm speak once

at a defense contractor I once worked for. He was claiming full credit for a contract renewing an airplane that was way past obsolete. Strange thing is while this waste of tax payer money was being debated in the senate, Gramm was against the renewal. As soon as it passed (over his objections) he runs down to our plant and takes credit for the very thing he fought against. The guy was/is shameless. Always running to the front of the band and pretending to lead it.



I wish I had a Gramm cartoon but I keep hoping he'll slink back into the shadows of obscurity, behind his wall of cash.

[blogslut]

3. Just draw a pig with a collar that reads Gramm

That would do.

I've never seen a more pig-faced man in my life.

[wilt the stilt]

5. he looks like a turtle

[SCantiGOP]

4. remember his Presidential bid?

Early on most of the MSM was giving him the nomination. He went nowhere and was out of the race after he came in fifth in the Iowa primary. This was 1996, so he missed out onthe opportunity to get beat by Bill Clinton.

[Bluerthanblue]

6. his wife was on the board of Enron-

seems kind of self serving for him.

peace~

[spooky3]

7. check out the conversation with Amy Goodman of Democracy Now!

involving David Corn and a financial expert.

David Corn:

"So here they were saying, “We were able to do this because of these unregulated swaps,” which some people at this community—Commodity Futures Trading Commission had wanted to regulate. And they were the lobbyists who went to—the financial industry lobbyists who went to Phil Gramm and said, “Listen, we’ve got to have these swaps unregulated.” They convinced Larry Summers, who was Treasury secretary. They convinced Alan Greenspan. And even though the bill was pronounced dead weeks before Phil Gramm did anything, he still managed to slip it through, get it passed by Congress when no one was looking, and no one even read it. You know, no one knew what was in this bill. And then the swap market took off, which helped lead to the subprime crisis.

And so, you’d think that a guy who did that and also gave us the Enron loophole would now be persona non grata in Washington and in the world of high finance. Well, if you thought that, you’d be wrong, because Phil Gramm went on to become a lobbyist and a high-paid executive at UBS, that same Swiss banking firm that lost tens of billions of dollars on the subprime crisis. And as I mentioned earlier, he’s in line now for a high position in a McCain administration. So, you know, you talk about failing upwards, Phil Gramm is a great example of the market not working. Somebody who has failed so grandly as Phil Gramm should be driven out of the market. He should be considered a bad product, laissez faire. But instead, because he’s pals with John McCain and has been for a long time, he’s in line to make these mistakes and do harm to the economy and to all of us yet again."

http://www.democracynow.org/2008/7/9/five_ways_wall_street_and_washington?ref=patrick.net