Reasons To Hate Republicans

Just in the case you’ve not figured it out by now, I loathe Republicans. They have – as history has demonstrated, time,  and time, again – led America down primrose paths of destruction, while benefiting their wealthy corporate donors and clientele.

I purposely do NOT use the word “constituent” in that sentence, precisely because when someone pays a person to do their bidding – it is a Master/Servant relationship, in which someone who is paid to render services, who otherwise would not – that’s what it is, a pay-for-play quid pro quo corruption of democratic representation.

And, to be absolutely certain, I am neither a sycophant for Democrats – and there are some corrupt ones, who would better be identified as “Republican Lite,” for they do not have The People’s best interests at heart, and like Republicans, do their Corporate Masters’ bidding.

The GOP is no longer “the party of Lincoln,” and hasn’t been for well over 100 years – probably more like 150. Republicans have been the source and cause of practically every scandal and corruption which has harmed the United States, and its people.

Republicans gave us The Great Depression.

Democrats saved not only the United States, but the world as well, from the ravages of the Great Depression.

And, ever since, Republicans have been trying to TEAR DOWN, and DESTROY every vestige of public policy, law, or governmental agency which benefits The People.

For example, again, hearkening back to the era of the Great Depression, Wall Street gambling, speculation, fiscal mismanagement with OPM (Other People’s Money), including outright fraud, were significantly contributing causes of the Great Depression, which began with the Wall Street Crash of 1929, and lasted until 1939.

In response to the factors which contributed to the Wall Street Crash of 1929, Congress (mostly Democrats) enacted the Glass-Steagall Act, and other legislation which regulated banks, stock brokerage houses, and insurance companies, and forbade them from engaging in any other business… because until that point, had not only had they commingled their funds and monies, because they were fungible, but for all practical purposes, had become virtually inseparable, and therefore undifferentiated from each other.

The Glass-Steagall Act put an end to those abusive practices, and forbade the three financial businesses from engaging in each others’ work – i.e., banks could not offer insurance, nor could they offer Wall Street stock brokerage services; insurance companies could neither offer stock brokerage services, nor banking services; and stock brokerage houses could neither offer banking, nor insurance services.

Here’s what Investopedia states about the Glass-Steagall Act:

“In 1933, in the wake of the 1929 stock market crash and during a nationwide commercial bank failure and the Great Depression, two members of Congress put their names on what is known today as the Glass-Steagall Act (GSA). This act separated investment and commercial banking activities. At the time, “improper banking activity,” or what was considered overzealous commercial bank involvement in stock market investment, was deemed the main culprit of the financial crash. According to that reasoning, commercial banks took on too much risk with depositors’ money. Additional, and sometimes non-related, explanations for the Great Depression evolved over the years, and many questioned whether the GSA hindered the establishment of financial services firms that can equally compete against each other.”

Senator Carter Glass, a Democrat from Virginia, figured prominently in establishing the U.S. financial regulatory system, including helping create the Federal Reserve System and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation – and Representative Henry B. Steagall of Alabama’s 3rd Congressional District, who was Chairman of the Committee on Banking and Currency.

A Congressional Research Service paper authored by William D. Jackson of the Economics Division published June 29, 1987 stated in part that, “The Administration and many depository institutions seek to relax this Act somewhat; other parties seek to retain its separation of banking and commerce.” At the time of the CRS report, Ronald Regan was POTUS.

Since enactment of the Glass-Steagall Act, the three industries – banking, insurance, and stock brokerage – had hired high-powered lobbyists and law firms to sway Congress to repeal the law. In fact, the three industries had spent so much money on lobbyists, and legal firms to sway Congress, that it had been a long-running joke (there’s ALWAYS truth in humor) that lobbyists had raised their families, and sent their kids to college – and their kids had done the same, twice over – on the money they earned from working upon that solitary effort – to repeal the Glass-Steagall Act. In effect, the effort to repeal the Glass-Steagall Act was a practical three-generation “cottage industry.”

Then, finally, under the Clinton administration, in 1999, with a Republican-dominated House (228R-206D) and Senate (55R-45D), Phil Gramm, a Democrat-turned-Republican Representative from Texas’ 6th Congressional District who ran for the Senate as a Republican in 1983, as Chairman of the U.S. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, co-authored legislation with Jim Leach, a Republican Representative from Iowa’s 2nd Congressional District, and Chairman of the House Committee on Banking and Financial Services, along with Republican Representative Thomas J. Bliley, Jr. of Virginia’s 7th Congressional District, Chairman of the House Commerce Committee, which became known as the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act which rescinded the Glass-Steagall Act under the guise of the “Financial Services Modernization Act of 1999” (Pub.L. 106–102, 113 Stat. 1338.

It didn’t take long for the financial markets to once again become abusive, and falter again. Complex financial services called “derivatives,” and CDSs (Credit Default Swaps), became highly popular, and in a Berlin press conference Friday, March 5, 2010 with Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou, German Chancellor Angela Merkel described CDSs as “Credit-default swaps – where you insure your neighbor’s house just to destroy it and make money from it – that’s exactly what we have to curb.”

She stated further that, “We must succeed at putting a stop to the speculators’ game with sovereign states. We can’t allow speculators to be the profiteers of Greece’s difficult situation.”

Chancellor Merkel had met with the Greek Prime Minister in context of Greece’s fiscal woes which were caused by deliberately deceptive and illegal practices by Goldman Sachs – hiding sales of financial vehicles from Greek, European & American regulators – which unscrupulous activity had a direct role in Greece’s fiscal woes from 2009-16.

Paul Volker also spoke in Berlin to the American Academy and called for tighter regulations on derivatives in American financial markets saying, “Surely the recent revelations about the use and abuse of complex derivatives in obscuring the extent of Greek financial obligations reinforces the need for greater transparency and less complexity.”

It wasn’t just Europe that was harmed by the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act. Banksters and other abusive Wall Street fraudsters harmed the American economy – as well as the global economy – when the “Great Recession” occurred during the George W. Bush (aka “Bush II,” or son-of-a-Bush) administration in 2007, and lasted until 2009. It was brought about by fraudulent and deceptive practices by banks which speculated in the housing industry, and

Former hedge fund manager, and Wall Street trader Jim Cramer, host of CNBC’s “Mad Money” program, and co-founder of TheStreet.com website, wrote that,

“the ‘subprime mortgage crisis’ was brought about by banks and financial institutions issuing high-risk candidates mortgages they couldn’t afforded. Subprime mortgages are typically mortgages granted to people with low credit scores (often in the low or below 600s), which are high risk for the lender.”

He wrote further that,

“The key reasons for the crisis were due to the Federal Reserve’s inability (or failure) of regulating the financial sector, the financial institution’s risky behavior (especially in regard to unadvisable mortgage lending), and an exuberant amount of borrowing by consumers or corporations without regard to the financial implications.”

Then, “suddenly,” the “too-big-to-fail” banks failed. The insurance companies did too. As did the Wall Street stock brokerage houses which profiteered upon others’ suffering – coming, and going.

And it was all driven by Republicans, and Republican Lite (Democrats in Republicans clothes) types.