PRESS RELEASE
U.S. Expert in Beijing Review: Trump Needs Glass-Steagall vs. Crash
Jan. 25, 2017 (EIRNS)—Restoring the Glass-Steagall Act to avert a financial and economic collapse is featured in a commentary in Beijing Review in America by American political expert and former senior Senate aide Clifford Kiracofe. The piece, dated Jan. 26 but written just before inauguration, is headlined "At a Crossroads: What Will Trump Do After Inauguration."
"Trump must also ensure financial stability at a time when some economists view the banking situation as more precarious than just prior to the onset of the 2007-08 crisis,"
Kiracofe writes.
"One litmus test will be whether or not his administration will ensure early passage of the Glass-Steagall banking act, which separates commercial banking from speculative investment banking.
"The Glass-Steagall legislation had been in place since the Great Depression of the 1930s, but under the influence of neo-liberalist politicians lobbied by the banking sector, Congress tore up the act in the late 1990s, setting the stage for the financial crisis which ensued a decade later."
Kiracofe also takes up the question of China’s expert engineering of, and the United States’ decrepit condition of, economic infrastructure, as have Chinese publications and financial officials like sovereign wealth fund chief Ding Xuendong.
"As focus turns to infrastructure," Kiracofe says,
"many opportunities will arise for business to participate. Such involvement, however, must not turn public goods into private monopolies, as in the case of private toll roads and private bridges, whose income streams can be parasitized by Wall Street or foreign financiers.
"The private sector can best serve infrastructure development in the design and construction phases. Joint ventures between U.S. and Chinese companies, for example, could help modernize infrastructure in the United States. And, beyond the United States, such partnerships could drive forward the practical development of China’s Belt and Road Initiative consisting of the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st-Century Maritime Silk Road."
