Right now the media and the right wing are trying to blame the meltdown on Barney Frank, home owners,
and everybody else but the real people behind it. Phil Graham is man who did more damage then anybody else.
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2008/05/foreclosure-philWiki
The Glass-Steagall Act of 1933 established the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) in the United States and included banking reforms,
some of which were designed to control speculation. Some provisions such as Regulation Q, which allowed the Federal Reserve to regulate interest
rates in savings accounts, were repealed by the Depository Institutions Deregulation and Monetary Control Act of 1980. Provisions that prohibit a
bank holding company from owning other financial companies were repealed on November 12, 1999, by the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act.
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The bill that ultimately repealed the Act was introduced in the Senate by Phil Gramm (Republican of Texas) and in the House of Representatives by
Jim Leach (R-Iowa) in 1999. The bills were passed by Republican majorities on party lines by a 54-44 vote in the Senate and by a 343-86 vote
in the House of Representatives. After passing both the Senate and House the bill was moved to a conference committee to work out the
differences between the Senate and House versions. The final, veto-proof bill resolving the differences was passed in the Senate 90-8 (1 not voting)
and in the House: 362-57 (15 not voting). The legislation was signed into law by President Bill Clinton on November 12, 1999.
The banking industry had been seeking the repeal of Glass-Steagall since at least the 1980s. In 1987 the Congressional Research Service prepared a
report which explored the case for preserving Glass-Steagall and the case against preserving the act.
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Financial events following the repeal
The repeal enabled commercial lenders such as Citigroup, which was in 1999 then the largest U.S. bank by assets, to underwrite and trade instruments
such as mortgage-backed securities and collateralized debt obligations and establish so-called structured investment vehicles, or SIVs, that bought
those securities. It is believed that the repeal of this act contributed to the Global financial crisis of 2008–2009.
The year before the repeal, sub-prime loans were just 5% of all mortgage lending.
By the time the credit crisis peaked in 2008,
they were approaching 30%