Trump Lends the Banksters a Hand
Donald Trump just pulled off the biggest bait-and-switch in American history.
Back when he was a presidential candidate, Trump said things about the big banks that made him sound like a Bernie Sanders Democrat.
In his final ad before Election Day, for example, he blasted the "global power structure" that he said was robbing the country blind and enriching the wealthy at the expense of working Americans.
That campaign ad -- and really the entire Donald Trump campaign -- will now go down in history as a con job of epic proportions.
All that populist talk about fighting the "draining the swamp"?
It was another one of those pesky little "Alternative Facts" Kellyanne Conway is always talking about.
It was a lie.
Instead of fighting the "global economic power structure," Donald Trump is now hard at work making it even more powerful.
For example, he's now asking the Labor Department to scrap the so-called fiduciary rule, which requires investors who manage retirement accounts to act in the best interest of their investors - not Wall Street.
Sounds pretty good, right?
Not for the banksters.
They hate the fiduciary rule because it prevents them from ripping people off - and they've spent millions lobbying against it over the past few years.
As Trump administration Economic Advisor and former Goldman Sachs second-in-command Gary Cohn told the Wall Street Journal, " [the fiduciary rule] is like putting only healthy food on the menu, because unhealthy food tastes good but you still shouldn't eat it because you might die younger."
Scrapping the fiduciary rule is just the start of Trump's big plan to help Wall Street.
Earlier today he signed an executive order calling on the government to "review" all regulations created by the Dodd-Frank financial reform law.
"Review," of course, is just more Republican doublespeak for what's actually going to happen.
And what's actually going to happen is that Trump is going to gut the very minimal protections created by the Dodd-Frank law to help his super-rich bankster friends get even richer.
This is literally what Trump says he wants do.
Seriously, I'm not kidding.
We all know what's going to happen next.
Anytime the government deregulates Wall Street, a financial crisis follows.
The deregulation of the big banks in the 1920s caused the crash of 1929 and the Great Depression, Reagan's deregulation of the S&L's in the early 1980s caused the S&L crisis, and repealing Glass-Steagall back in the 2000s caused the crash of 2008.
These are just facts, and if Trump goes ahead with his push to gut Dodd-Frank, the next financial crisis is all but inevitable.
I guarantee it.
Comments
I was a stockbroker in the late 1980's and you couldn't even tell one client to do something and another to do the opposite, despite there being no specific "fiduciary law" at the time. The NASD would revoke your license and notify your states AG if you did something as small as that. How did the financial community get the ability to commit outright fraud since then? And how are they getting away with the demand to do so?
If Trump gets his way, the coming economic disaster will make the Great Depression look like a 'minor downturn'.
I think I'll start hoarding salt; it may soon be the only thing worth anything.
Thom, The "terrorist" attack at the Louvre was at a shopping center nearby. Why did I just learn about it? Our media concentration is killing us.
Experts are indicating that the market has only been this overvalued twice in history....1929 and 1999, when the crashes were 89% and 50% respectively.
Big money is getting out soon, as the bubble peaks, and then get right back in after the market dips well below 10,000. As always, the working class 401K holders won't be able to get out in time, and will be advised to ride it out....that's how the Wall Street crooks have things rigged. It's very difficult to move 401K investments quickly.
The only safe place now is basically zero percent savings accounts in credit union banks or perhaps gold and silver.
Oh.. the market is going to crash alright. The question is, will the Teabaggers block the bailout this time? There's no room to drop rates either...get the hell out now and good luck!
Is there any logical reason for anyone to be surprised as Trump does what we thought he would do?
First and foremost, Predator Trump is a worthless liar. That is just the long-established fact of his life. You can't believe a damn thing he says, and you sure as hell can't trust him.
Everyone knows that, especially his family, other people closest to him, and anyone who has ever had any interaction with him throughout his entire career as a completely spoiled scion of the wealthy elite, including politicians, business men and women, bankers, contractors, employees, beauty contestants, his own staff, and now even his new cabinet members.
As this sick individual acts out his delusions of grandeur, the volatile traits of a twisted personality emerge unconsciously and uncontrollably, revealing a shallow and incurious mind, a short attention span and lack of focus, a vindictive nature, a malevolent narcissistic personality disorder that is likely clinical, an acute lack of empathy, a nearly total disregard for the wellbeing of others, a bigot, a racist, a misogynist, a xenophobe, and a Hitleresque authoritarian streak that is the envy of tin-pot dictators everywhere -- all adding up to the worst possible combination of negative emotional and mental proclivities of anyone who has ever sat behind the desk of the most powerful nation on Earth.
Now that he is fouling the Oval Office with the stench of selfishness, greed, and lust for power, the rest of our deeply concerned and disillusioned Western world are desperately realigning their already shaken view of the United States as the "leader of the free world" to the new reality of an unhinged, militaristic, plutocratic, fascist kakistocracy, arguably the greatest threat to the evolution of the universal and naturally human quest for democracy and for a sustainable environment in all of history.
The only people left who seem totally oblivious to this unbelievably dire threat are the naive and the gullible, those brainwashed Americans who swallowed the lies and voted for this maniac, the 63 million who are but the tiniest fraction of Mother Earth's fragile and vulnerable inhabitants.
The Fiduciary Rule rhetoric is weird to someone who is a licensed fiduciary. "Financial Advisor" isn't a legal term, it's a marketing device. Stop misleading your listeners about this topic. A Series 65/66 license is a fiduciary license for "Investment Advisors" a legal term. Love you Thom!
Trump is nothing but a con-man carnival barker. There is nothing to discover "in his heart" that differs from the excrement that issues from his mouth and overflows into his tweets. I'm thinking there's very little left to discover in his brain. Unfortunately, it's we who will pay the price. The Republicans took and are taking full advantage with their take-over of House and Senate, and the white supremicist infiltration is stomach-turning. The extent of this tragedy does not end with the economy, though. Cruz and 22 of his cohorts tried 44 times to privatize the National Parks; now they can do it with no fear of veto. The Dominion (7 mountains and all) are all set to take control with their version of "Christianity." They think the Catholics are liberals. And there are more of them in government than you imagine. Perhaps they and the skinheads can come to an agreement ... oh joy. And forget the social safety net.
We need you more than ever, now, Thom. Thank you.
FRANCES PERKINS
is screaming from her grave
VOTE NO ON ANDREW PUZDER
In the first two weeks of the honeymoon the leftie/socialists have so generously given President Trump, he has followed through with his promises and met the expectations of most of his supporters. They are obviously not the same as most posters here but I heard once, "elections have consequences" so get over it.
Mr. Ed: Perhaps Thom's suggestion of 8 days of mindless meditation will help but before you go, please pre-post 8 days worth of venom so we have a weeks worth of entertainment. It may make it easier to breath while you are chanting.
Ha! Ha! Ha! Dianereynolds, You're satires on these rightwing, knuckle-dragging, treasonous, delusional Nazi/Facsist morons, that still think that Trump won the election are hilarious. You have these rubes down perfectly. Hell, if you were posting this on Brietbart, I'd think you were one of them.
But of course we know that Trump DID NOT win the election! In fact, he lost the election by about 3 million votes. We know that what he won, was the "Electoral College," an institution used by the founders to appease the bigoted, xenophobic, rightwing religious fanatic nut bags of the Southern states to get them into the Union. Of course, we also know that this very institution has since been commondeered by these same treasonous bigots with the help of greedy billionaires and throughly unprincipled, Republican politians, using a variety of voter suppression techniques and voter intimidation to illegitimately swing the results their way.
But keep up these great satires. They're funny as hell!
I must be mistaken. I was not aware Hillary Clinton was currrently the POTUS.
Let's hope there is room in the sweat lodge for a jackass and a pigeon. Can birds sit cross- legged?
Stopgap:
Deepspace is thankful for you, as long as you're here he won't be the dumbest bigot on this site.
Yes Dianereynolds, As usual, you are mistaken. From now on, whatever you think and whatever Ou812 says, just consider the opposite, and you will always be right.
@ Stopgap #15
I don't know how well your theory will sit with Deepspace. If you consider the opposite of what I said, Deepspace is the dumbest bigot on this site, and you are runner-up. :)
Alas, every forum has its little ankle-biting trolls; at least this blog is blessed with ones who aren't too bright. It's well established that the Bobbsey twins, Granny Di and Ou8diot, never have much to say of great import, only snide and simplistic comments repeated over and over without much variation, which, sadly, they think are so clever. Really, their whole shtick is rather boring and irrelevant, not worthy of much response.
I completely agree with KCRuger. Indeed, how is the financial community getting away with fraud, and how is Trump and all of the campaign candidates getting away with lying to us? If we purchase a car and they deliver a truck, we have the right of refusal. Why are we tolerating all of this exceedingly bad behavior out of all of these people? When do we stop indulging them and throw them the heck out??? I'm for recalling Trump if he's not going to deliver on his campaign promises.
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Mueller's favorite place to pray (written about in "Prophet's Way"), and the roof of the room where the Last Supper is reputed to have happened.
People should have the right to make bad decisions,.
But, they should pay a high tax to cover the cost of cleaning up the mess
we as tax payers must pay.
The principle applies to junk food, junk financial products, and probably
stranded mountain climbers who cost a lot to rescue.
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