PRESS RELEASE
Bankrupt Wall Street Goes for Show of Force Against Glass-Steagall; Showdown with American Citizens Builds
Feb. 3, 2017 (EIRNS)—Within 48 hours of the Feb. 1 Capitol Hill press conference given by four, bipartisan members of the House of Representatives, and many constituent supporters, to announce the introduction of a bill to restore President Franklin Delano Roosevelt's Glass-Steagall Act, Wall Street deployed in force to assert its power in the pitched battle over the direction of the Trump Administration.
The occasion chosen was President Trump’s meeting today with his CEO "kitchen cabinet" (officially known as the President’s Strategic and Policy Forum) and his subsequent signing of two Executive Orders on financial regulatory reform. JP Morgan’s Aaron Burr-admiring, Glass-Steagall-hating Jamie Dimon and White House National Economic Council Director and former Goldman Sachs CEO Gary Cohn took the lead in delivering Wall Street’s desired message that "we are still in control here." (Just the day before, CNN sounded the alert that Wall Street fears that Glass-Steagall could be reinstated. driving Dimon to rush down to Washington.)
Cohn went on a wild media blitz, giving a Thursday night interview to the Wall Street Journal and Friday morning interviews to anyone who would listen (Bloomberg, CNBC, Fox etc.). He promised that the Dodd-Frank atrocity would be replaced by even greater deregulation for the big banks, and freed of regulatory burdens, the banks will then offer "better products," at better prices. Oh, this isn’t about Goldman Sachs, or JP Morgan, or Citibank, he said; "it has to do with being a player in a global market where we should, could and will have a dominant position as long as we don’t regulate ourselves out of that." Cohn repeated over and over that nothing should threaten Wall Street’s "deep, liquid, transparent and orderly markets," which have destroyed the lives of so many people in the United States and aboard.
For his part, Jamie Dimon was singled out from among the various bankers (or hedge fund managers) by Trump in his public remarks at the opening of the meeting. "There’s nobody better ... than Jamie" to tell me about Dodd-Frank and regulations on the banking "industry," said Trump.
Trump signed two Executive actions following the meeting. The "Executive Order On Core Principles for Regulating the United States Financial System" contains vague statements of Wall Street double-talk, but the EO mandates the Secretary of the Treasury to prepare a report for the President within 120 days, in consultation with the heads of the member agencies of the Financial Stability Oversight Council, on how to revamp financial regulations. Should Goldman Sachs’s Steven Mnuchin be confirmed as Treasury Secretary, who will benefit is clear.
The "Presidential Memorandum on Fiduciary Duty Rule" also signed, freezes implementation of a rule requiring retirement investment advisors to put their clients interests first, in the name of "empower[ing] Americans to make their own financial decisions."
The Wall Street Journal waxed manic in a 9 am posting today, in an article headlined, "Trump Reforms Are Stuff of Banker Dreams," because they are so "... audacious in their deregulatory scope." Bloomberg is hopeful that the administration is finally "delivering on Wall Street’s wish list."
Wall Street faces two, potentially crushing obstacles, however: the reality that their entire system is irreparably bankrupt and unsalvageable; and the fact that the American people hate them, and are beginning to mobilize themselves as a unified force behind the banner of restoring Glass-Steagall and American System economics.
Jamie Dimon is well aware that resolutions calling for the restoration of Glass-Steagall have been introduced in seven state legislatures (three of the resolutions include the full "American Economic Recovery" Program outlined by Lyndon LaRouche) in a period of only a few weeks; and that there are other break-out points.
Press releases are now circulating from Representatives Marcy Kaptur (D-Ohio), Walter Jones (R-N.C.), Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawaii) and Tim Ryan (D-Ohio) announcing their introduction of the "Prudent Bank Bill" (H.R. 790) to restore Glass-Steagall. LaRouche PAC’s video of the entire Feb. 1 press conference is remoralizing people around the country as they see for themselves that the necessary movement is coming together behind this cause; this video, is being reposted across the internet.
Wall Street is no longer the only game in town. Spread the word! Your life depends on that.
