Speaking of Bill Clinton...

In a recent Today Show interview, Ann Curry asked Bill Clinton if he thought he should take any blame for the current financial crisis. Bill responded, "Oh no... My question to them is: Do any of them seriously believe if I had been president, and my economic team had been in place the last eight years, that this would be happening today? I think they know the answer to that: No." What a preening, self agrandizing turd this man is!

Changes his administration made to the Community Reinvestment Act led to relaxed mortgage rules so that more socially disadvantaged borrowers could qualify for home loans. A major component of the housing bubble bursting was too many people who had mortgages they could not service, and should not have gotten in the first place. That's on Bill.

Then there is the 1999 repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act. Glass-Steagall ensured the separation between commercial banks and investment banks. Commercial banks accept deposits, and take a conservative approach. Investment banks accept invest money and take risks, sometimes large risks. When the two merged, the banks realized that there was a high profit in risk, so guess where they put their money? The current banking crisis is a direct result of too many banks putting too much money into risky investments. Had Glass-Steagall remained in place, the conservative commercial banking side would have offset the risky investment banking side and the banks would not be in nearly as much trouble. To be fair, the repeal of Glass-Steagall was authored by Senate by Republicans Phil Gramm and Jim Leach and passed along party lines in both the House and the Senate. But Clinton’s Treasury Secretary,Robert Rubin, had testified in Congress in 1995 that the Clinton Administration was ready to repeal Glass-Steagall, so the administration was complicit in its repeal.

The Guardian recently published an article entitled "Twenty-five people at the heart of the meltdown ...". (Read that article here:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2009/jan/26/road-ruin-recession-individuals-economy). Clinton was the third person named. Perhaps not the third most culpable, but not innocent either.

So, to answer Bill's question of "Do any of them seriously believe if I had been president, and my economic team had been in place the last eight years, that this would be happening today?" My answer is, "Yes, without a doubt."

Clinton's denials only add to his legacy as a double-talking, self-serving hack of the highest order. He should join the GOP, because he would fit right in with the current crop.