Nancy Pelosi's Partisan Speech!

Matt Welch | September 29, 2008

If that's what it took to rile up the House Republicans enough to remember their free-market roots, then more like this, Madame Speaker!

I'll actually second Pelosi's motion about the Bush administration's deficits and "fiscal irresponsibility," and I share her concerns about giving the secretary of the treasury "czar-like powers," but I am nothing but sincere when I ask–what is this "anything-goes economic policy" she and her ilk constantly refer to? How does the accusation of "no regulation, no supervision, no discipline" square with, I dunno, the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, which (besides providing full employment to accountants, and helping to strong-arm the media) contributed directly to the current crisis through its "mark to market" accounting rules?

As in John McCain's bizarre call to fire Security and Exchange Commission Chair Christopher Cox, what–specifically–were the regulations that weren't being enforced? Every day, every hour, you keep hearing this stuff: The Party is Over, no more unfettered capitalism, time for regulation, etc., but where's the supporting evidence that A) this is actually true, and B) X regulation, when being allegedly unenforced, caused Y to happen? Consider this an open invitation in the comments.

Comments

Fluffy|9.29.08 @ 3:19PM|#

It doesn't exist.

The "Deregulation caused this!" meme is the left's equivalent of "The Community Reinvestment Act caused this!" It's only possible to believe it if you don't really probe very far into the underlying facts.

DannyK|9.29.08 @ 3:19PM|#

CDO's and swaps are totally unregulated, I think.

Also, didn't Christopher Cox raise the limit on leverage and drop the capital requirements for the big five investment banks? I don't know if that contributed to the crash or not, but it doesn't look good in hindsight.

|9.29.08 @ 3:25PM|#

So what you're saying is that the deregulation of the financial market that's taken place over the past decade or so wasn't "real deregulation" leading to a genuine free market.

Fine. That's a fine position to take.

I hope you remember it the next time there's another wave of deregulation, and it sponsors are breathlessly noting that it will shrink th federal code.

|9.29.08 @ 3:27PM|#

what is this "anything-goes economic policy" she and her ilk constantly refer to?

I'll just link to something I once said.

Matt Welch|9.29.08 @ 3:35PM|#

So what you're saying is that the deregulation of the financial market that's taken place over the past decade or so wasn't "real deregulation" leading to a genuine free market.

No, what I'm saying is, how SPECIFICALLY did the removal of the Chinese Wall between investment banks and commercial banks precipitate this crisis, what SPECIFIC existing regulations wen't enforced & also precipitated the problem, and how does the creation of Sarbanes-Oxley fit into your deregulation-over-the-past-decade narrative?

Paul|9.29.08 @ 3:37PM|#

What dregulation? What free market? Oh, the one where if you create exotic debt instruments and then don't know how much they're worth the government bails you out? Oh that free market.

What does the SEC do, joe? Here's a very short list of, you know, regulations.

But you guys who keep believing we're living in this unfettered free market, you just keep doing that. Keep listening to radio like Counterspin (operative word: counter, notice the lack of absence of the word 'spin') where they keep complaining about how Bush is trying to "gut government" and shrink it out of existence. You keep on believing that.

Just because they remove six or eight rules, but keep 15,000 does not a deregulated market make. But now we know this will get fixed in the next round of re-regulation. And this will never happen again.

|9.29.08 @ 3:40PM|#

The dems are the ones for years that have claimed freddy and fanny didn't need regulation and praised the affordable housing boom. This is what caused the mess we're in, not Bush policies.

|9.29.08 @ 3:42PM|#

Deregulation? Um, I spent years dealing with all of those financial deregulations, and they sure seemed more burdensome over time to me. The only deregulation that anyone could possibly point to is GLB, and it most assuredly didn't create this mess. Most of the opportunities for financial "modernization" weren't taken advantage of, anyway.

|9.29.08 @ 3:47PM|#

Just because they remove six or eight rules, but keep 15,000 does not a deregulated market make.

My point exactly, Paul. Once again, "I hope you remember it the next time there's another wave of deregulation, and it sponsors are breathlessly noting that it will shrink th federal code."

|9.29.08 @ 3:50PM|#

Matt Welch,

SPECIFICALLY, in this case, it's mainly a problem of the dog that didn't bark. As more economic activity moved into exotic financial arrangements (BDBs, debt swaps) that weren't regulated, the government failed to keep up. Regulation in this sphere is more like collecting the trash than building a bridge. You can finish a bridge, but there will always be more trash to pick up.

|9.29.08 @ 3:52PM|#

Unfortunately, in November of 1999, Senator Phil Gramm (R-Texas) and Representative James Leach (R-Iowa) finally got Clinton, after a majority vote of Congress against the act, to get rid of it. And free-market Phil, unlike Punxsutawney Phil, became an unlikely predictor of the financial storms this would bring.
As Wikipedia reports, "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.

"The repeal enabled commercial lenders such as Citigroup, the largest U.S. bank, 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. Citigroup played a major part in the repeal. Then called Citicorp, the company merged with Travelers Insurance Company the year before using loopholes in Glass-Steagall that allowed for temporary exemptions. With lobbying led by Roger Levy, the 'finance, insurance and real estate industries together are regularly the largest campaign contributors and biggest spenders on lobbying of all business sectors [in 1999]. They laid out more than $200 million for lobbying in 1998, according to the Center for Responsive Politics' . . . These industries succeeded in their two decades long effort to repeal the act."

This opened the doorway to the financial disaster we have been living. In fact, in the last 20 years, we have the savings and loan disaster, thanks to pumping and dumping junk bonds into the 1989 market, which created Black Tuesday; then add to that the dot.com bubble, pumping up the value of literally unknown dot.com companies to inflate the economy with a false prosperity. This was just like the spread of collateralized (junk) debt paper, much of it from predatory lending, to grease the housing bubble into oblivion and cause a nearly world economic collapse due to the loss of liquidity.

Urkobold™|9.29.08 @ 3:53PM|#

THE URKOBOLD HAS A QUESTION. DOES PELOSI HAVE A GIANT RACK? IF SO, HAS SHE HYPNOTIZED CONGRESS WITH IT?

|9.29.08 @ 3:54PM|#

I never realized how much Pilosi sounds like Billy Quizboy.

"I heard from a reliable source that she has a surgically-implanted baboon's uterus."

|9.29.08 @ 3:56PM|#

I'm no fan of Bush - but Pelosi's got a lot of nerve making a partisan speech like this one while announcing a bipartisan bill.

FACT: Republicans tried multiple times to regulate the GSEs - and Democrats stopped them every time.

Check out these youtube videos:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RYz1rbB5V1s&feature=related


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_MGT_cSi7Rs

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3QBRIsCkGQ0&feature=related

Garrett J|9.29.08 @ 3:56PM|#

To all you regulation happy folks out there-

I'd still like to see an answer to Matt's question. How did the supposed lack of regulation lead us to where we are today. And while you're at it, what regulation was so painfully obviously missing?

|9.29.08 @ 3:58PM|#

Swaps aren't new. They were used heavily back in the 90s, well before GLB. By banks. They're used to hedge against changes in interest rates.

It's crazy talk to blame GLB. Like I said earlier, a lot of the possible liberalization presented by GLB wasn't taken advantage of by banks. Even banks that jumped into the holding company excitement turned away some time ago--Citigroup got rid of Travelers, for instance.

balkanization|9.29.08 @ 4:01PM|#

How exactly would requiring banks to have a bit more money upfront when they are purchasing bundles of mortgages, etc. be an infringement of the free market? To put it another way how is buying with imaginary monies part and parcel of the free market? Regulating banks is like regulating prostitution and drugs: it is what governments do. Or are you suggesting we move to the ideal world of Ron Paul and the anarchists in the streets? (Just give me a few weeks to build the moat.)

|9.29.08 @ 4:02PM|#

FACT: Republicans tried multiple times to regulate the GSEs - and Democrats stopped them every time.

FACT: the GSEs are bit players in the MBSs market.

FACT: none of the regulations proposed for the GSEs were targatted at the activities, like speculating on MBSs, what brought about this crisis. In fact, the 2005 bill McCain signed onto would have increased Fannie Mae's MBS holdings.

|9.29.08 @ 4:05PM|#

Swaps aren't new. They were used heavily back in the 90s, well before GLB.

Sure, but the skyrocketing increase in credit default insurance swaps - current outsanding value is in the neighborhood of $45 trillion - indicates that there was a sea change in financial practice.

|9.29.08 @ 4:09PM|#

Two specific instances of deregulation exacerbating problem:
Exempting the big five investment banks from capital requirements resulting in leverage of 30-40 to 1.
Lax enforcement of short sale rules at SEC about required delivery of borrowed shares.

|9.29.08 @ 4:10PM|#

It has occurred to a few commentators that repeal of the Depression-era Glass-Steagall Act may be partly to blame for the banking and real estate morass we find ourselves in today. Glass-Steagall, you may or may not recall, effectively locked commercial banks and investment banks out of each others' businesses. It was felt at the time the law passed, that the Great Crash was exacerbated because commercial banks had been allowed to underwrite securities and had therefore exposed depositors to stock market risk.....(to the extent that their deposits disappear if the bank saw heavy losses from its exposure to the stock market).

Repealing the act, shortly after Citicorp and Travelers announced their merger in the late 90s, allowed investment banks and commercial banks to combine their businesses. Citigroup can at once take depositors' money while at the same time exposing its balance sheet to immense risks through vehicles like SIVs. The idea that commercial banks should principally be concerned with protecting depositors' capital seemed quaint in the late 90s I guess.

Here is a fascinating passage from a Frontline report published in 2003 regarding the repeal of Glass-Stegall [Though not repealed until 1999, various provisions of the act were "reinterpreted" or otherwise overridden in the 20 years leading up to its full repeal]:

In the spring of 1987, the Federal Reserve Board votes 3-2 in favor of easing regulations under Glass-Steagall Act, overriding the opposition of Chairman Paul Volcker. The vote comes after the Fed Board hears proposals from Citicorp, J.P. Morgan and Bankers Trust advocating the loosening of Glass-Steagall restrictions to allow banks to handle several underwriting businesses, including commercial paper, municipal revenue bonds, and mortgage-backed securities. Thomas Theobald, then vice chairman of Citicorp, argues that three "outside checks" on corporate misbehavior had emerged since 1933: "a very effective" SEC; knowledgeable investors, and "very sophisticated" rating agencies.

Volcker is unconvinced, and expresses his fear that lenders will recklessly lower loan standards in pursuit of lucrative securities offerings and market bad loans to the public. For many critics, it boiled down to the issue of two different cultures - a culture of risk which was the securities business, and a culture of protection of deposits which was the culture of banking.
Hah! Boy was Volcker right. And isn't it hilarious (tragic?) that the government was duped into believing that the SEC, "knowledgeable" investors and "sophisticated" rating agencies could protect the banking system from repeating the mistakes of 1929?

It's ironic that we're likely to see new regulations restricting rating agencies from receiving payments directly from banks underwriting bonds.

I should note that I'm not arguing Glass-Steagall would necessarily have prevented the current credit crisis, or that bringing it back would solve our problems. Plenty of commercial banks that have no investment banking operations are in deep trouble.

|9.29.08 @ 4:11PM|#

Republican politics since Reagan has been based on a cult like system of beliefs--tax cuts, deregulation, anti-liberalism, pro-choice, etc--that required a kind of zealotry akin to evangelical indoctrination. What we see in the Republican's visceral reaction to Pelosi's indictment of the conservative canon is the fear of members whose rationalism would be seen as apostasy among the zealot followers who placed them in power. They fear political burning as heretics from followers pledged not to analysis and conclusion but self righteous imperative and proselytizing the conservative ideology like a religion. Such is the fate of our nation to be led astray in the name of failed ideology and its adherents.

|9.29.08 @ 4:13PM|#

Pelosi's speech is a disgrace. All of her partisan posturing wreaks of a pathetic attempt to make a "statement." She is an ego-maniac. No spirit of a true patriot.

|9.29.08 @ 4:14PM|#

joe,

Actually, it's entirely wrong to say that GSEs were bit players in the MBS market. For a shorter explanation than I'm likely to give, here's the SEC on the topic. We could have deregulated all day and avoided this without the GSEs' contributions.

I'm not picking on you here; I just have had a bad feeling about the implicit guarantee behind the GSEs since 2003 or so. Only I had no idea how much damage that reliance would cause. Which is why I own 100 shares of Nothing Mutual today. The MBSs alone aren't the problem; the insane amount of leverage on those questionable securities is. The ratings on those securities were also entirely and incredibly wrong.

I think the government set up this nasty situation, but there's no doubt that an all-too wiling lending/trading community and general public made this the financial mess that it is today.

|9.29.08 @ 4:25PM|#

Can we all admit that BOTH Republicans and Democrats failed and the fact that when politics have NO place in the policy that MUST be enacted, they were front and center? Nancy has been in Washington, what has she done to stop this over the past 8 years...it is EVERYONE'S fault...including you and I who vote for these people!

I don't care if you pick Obama or McCain...but CHANGE MUST OCCUR!

|9.29.08 @ 4:26PM|#

Pelosi's speech was fine. Republicans are embarrassed because a few too many of them prioritized reelection over country. Blaming Pelosi is what they always resort to whenever things don't go right. But I really don't see how it's a political winner to admit that they would have supported an emergency measure to save the country if their wittle feelings just hadn't been bruised.

|9.29.08 @ 4:30PM|#

Incidentally, the role of the GSEs and the government in this requires bipartisan blame. Neither party did one thing to mitigate the damage, and there's reason to believe that both knew that at least some sort of crisis was on the horizon a number of years ago.

Mental wounds not healing,
Drivin' me insane.
I'm going off the rails on a crazy train.

|9.29.08 @ 4:31PM|#

I'm under the impression that a big part of our financial troubles is the monetary policy that the Fed has pursued for many years, keeping the Fed rate low, increasing the money supply and driving down the value of the dollar. I'm not sure how exactly that could cause our problems, but it makes sense to me that the policy could have exacerbated the real-estate bubble.

|9.29.08 @ 4:34PM|#

The problem with Nancy Pelosi is that she is a critic, not a leader. Her speech should have brought everyone together to do the right thing. But that isn't her instinct at all. Her instinct is to play the partisan political game even at times like this. She should not be in a leadership position.

Kolohe|9.29.08 @ 4:35PM|#

FACT: the GSEs are bit players in the MBSs market.

Sorry, this fact ain't true.

It was the case that they were bit players in the *subprime* MBS market. But they *are* (or were) the overall mainstream MBS market. They got burned by getting too much into Alt-A. (among other factors)

Kolohe|9.29.08 @ 4:36PM|#

FACT: none of the regulations proposed for the GSEs were targatted at the activities, like speculating on MBSs, what brought about this crisis. In fact, the 2005 bill McCain signed onto would have increased Fannie Mae's MBS holdings

This is correct (cept speling of corse :)

|9.29.08 @ 4:48PM|#

Wow you economist historians are a bunch of idiots. What caused this was a 300% jump in gas prices since 1999. The 300% jump in insurance prices (auto-home-health) since 1999. And the resultant inflation that occurred because of that.

Because of these three factors the people at the bottom (such as myself) found themselves with less and less capital to purchase. Many found themselves unable to pay their bills. No one bought a house thinking that they weren't going to make the payments. Most folks who are in foreclosure now...bought a house they could afford until the oil companies, insurance companies, and retailers like Wal-Mart ate every penny of capital they had. This crap didn't happen in a vacuum.

Until the issues of the above paragraph are met then they'll be no resolution to this financial crisis we are in.

|9.29.08 @ 4:50PM|#

Can someone with more knowledge of parliamentary procedures than me answer a serious question?

I don't watch much C-Span, but Barney yielded Pelosi one minute, the chair recognized her for one minute, and that speech was way longer than one minute. How does that work?

|9.29.08 @ 4:59PM|#

So what you're saying is that the deregulation of the financial market that's taken place over the past decade or so wasn't "real deregulation" leading to a genuine free market.

WHAT DEREGULATION? Who are you trying to kid?

I hope you remember it the next time there's another wave of deregulation[sic], and it sponsors are breathlessly noting that it will shrink the federal code.

Yeah, another round of "deregulation" like that, Joe, would finally cripple the country. If what companies experienced this last decade is an example of "deregulation", it creeps me out to think what a wave of regulation would look like.

|9.29.08 @ 5:01PM|#

This is the situation you liberal morons

The Real Culprits In This Meltdown
By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY | Posted Monday, September 15, 2008

Big Government: Barack Obama and Democrats blame the historic financial turmoil on the market. But if it's dysfunctional, Democrats during the Clinton years are a prime reason for it.


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Read More: Business & Regulation


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Obama in a statement yesterday blamed the shocking new round of subprime-related bankruptcies on the free-market system, and specifically the "trickle-down" economics of the Bush administration, which he tried to gig opponent John McCain for wanting to extend.

But it was the Clinton administration, obsessed with multiculturalism, that dictated where mortgage lenders could lend, and originally helped create the market for the high-risk subprime loans now infecting like a retrovirus the balance sheets of many of Wall Street's most revered institutions.

Tough new regulations forced lenders into high-risk areas where they had no choice but to lower lending standards to make the loans that sound business practices had previously guarded against making. It was either that or face stiff government penalties.

The untold story in this whole national crisis is that President Clinton put on steroids the Community Reinvestment Act*, a well-intended Carter-era law designed to encourage minority homeownership. And in so doing, he helped create the market for the risky subprime loans that he and Democrats now decry as not only greedy but "predatory."

Yes, the market was fueled by greed and overleveraging in the secondary market for subprimes, vis-a-vis mortgaged-backed securities traded on Wall Street. But the seed was planted in the '90s by Clinton and his social engineers. They were the political catalyst behind this slow-motion financial train wreck.

And it was the Clinton administration that mismanaged the quasi-governmental agencies that over the decades have come to manage the real estate market in America.

As soon as Clinton crony Franklin Delano Raines took the helm in 1999 at Fannie Mae, for example, he used it as his personal piggy bank, looting it for a total of almost $100 million in compensation by the time he left in early 2005 under an ethical cloud.

Other Clinton cronies, including Janet Reno aide Jamie Gorelick, padded their pockets to the tune of another $75 million.

Raines was accused of overstating earnings and shifting losses so he and other senior executives could earn big bonuses.

In the end, Fannie had to pay a record $400 million civil fine for SEC and other violations, while also agreeing as part of a settlement to make changes in its accounting procedures and ways of managing risk.

But it was too little, too late. Raines had reportedly steered Fannie Mae business to subprime giant Countrywide Financial, which was saved from bankruptcy by Bank of America.

At the same time, the Clinton administration was pushing Fannie and her brother Freddie Mac to buy more mortgages from low-income households.

The Clinton-era corruption, combined with unprecedented catering to affordable-housing lobbyists, resulted in today's nationalization of both Fannie and Freddie, a move that is expected to cost taxpayers tens of billions of dollars.

And the worst is far from over. By the time it is, we'll all be paying for Clinton's social experiment, one that Obama hopes to trump with a whole new round of meddling in the housing and jobs markets. In fact, the social experiment Obama has planned could dwarf both the Great Society and New Deal in size and scope.

There's a political root cause to this mess that we ignore at our peril. If we blame the wrong culprits, we'll learn the wrong lessons. And taxpayers will be on the hook for even larger bailouts down the road.

But the government-can-do-no-wrong crowd just doesn't get it. They won't acknowledge the law of unintended consequences from well-meaning, if misguided, acts.

Obama and Democrats on the Hill think even more regulation and more interference in the market will solve the problem their policies helped cause. For now, unarmed by the historic record, conventional wisdom is buying into their blame-business-first rhetoric and bigger-government solutions.

While government arguably has a role in helping low-income folks buy a home, Clinton went overboard by strong-arming lenders with tougher and tougher regulations, which only led to lenders taking on hundreds of billions in subprime bilge.

Market failure? Hardly. Once again, this crisis has government's fingerprints all over it.

*In the original version of this editorial, the Community Reinvestment Act was mistakenly listed as the "Community Redevelopment Act".

Metin Odemis|9.29.08 @ 5:02PM|#

Long live the free market economy!!!

Who is Pelosi to talk about 'fiscal irresponsibility' anyway?

This November, let's start with Pelosi, and vote for the challenger in each and every case, on both sides of the aisle.

Unless of course McCain suspends the Elections, and wants Bush to remain in the White House until the bail money is found...

|9.29.08 @ 5:06PM|#

I can not stand you democrats,liberal media jerks. Especially that idiot Keith Olbermann, I wonder if he has the courage to tell a Marine to his face that he is a cold blooded killer. All of you disrepectful same sex marriage, pot smoking, tree hugging wimps go and get a job and help make this country greater than ever was before.

|9.29.08 @ 5:52PM|#

Paul:
Outstanding explanation. Kinda explains why the Demos are not screaming for hearings to pin the blame. They don't want the truth known.

jim|9.29.08 @ 5:54PM|#

who is she kidding? she is a self deluded idiot and barney,chris dodd. they and their cronies new back in 2005 what was going on and ignored it because they and friends were profitting from it. will anyone in the news media really look into it other than a few on talk radio?

|9.29.08 @ 5:57PM|#

Paul, you've lost it. Marines are supposed to be cold blooded killers. That's what we pay them for. Jesus liked men. God made pot for the people to use. Tree huggers aren't qualified for any jobs I'm aware of. And this country can't get any greater than it was when Leave it to Beaver was on the air.

|9.29.08 @ 6:04PM|#

I guess that's what I get for asking a serious question. Crickets.

joe|9.29.08 @ 6:10PM|#

Right, the GSEs are a bit player in the sub-prime MBS market - which is the one that cratered and set this all off.

LoL, the CRA horseshit again! How many times has this been refuted now?

|9.29.08 @ 6:10PM|#

John-David,

I cannot help you. But go here and peruse.

joe|9.29.08 @ 6:11PM|#

Damn, how many McCain points is it worth to write "Nancy Pelosi" and "partisan speech" in the same comment thread?

Good work, fellas. Not to absurdly obvious at all.

|9.29.08 @ 6:17PM|#

Hi Paul,

I am your conscience. I'm really worried that you forgot to take your medication today. You know the medication that you receive from the well-funded VA hospital ever since you got back from freedom fighting in Iraq. Nice job by the way. Thank you for keeping "America" "safe".

Anyway, your lapse is temporary and as long as you keep taking the blue pill you'll be able to pretend that nothing is wrong, and that the country doesn't need democratic parties, doesn't need liberal thought, that "Marines" are in-fact warm-blooded and don't kill anyone, that everyone is happily married to the opposite sex and that conservative christian beliefs truly work for everyone, that pot smoking is more dangerous than cocaine use by Presidents, that trees don't need hugging because it's been scientifically proven that they do not provide food, oxygen, shelter and medicine, and that there is a healthy economy that provides jobs for ever American, that none of those jobs have been moved overseas, and that this country is already greater than it ever was before, whenever that was, regardless.

Paul? Paul? Are you there? Good. Just close your eyes, put the pill in your mouth and swallow. Good. Good job Paul. Now bend over...

|9.29.08 @ 6:17PM|#

joe,

Again, I must disagree. The GSEs' meddling was far worse than you imagine, and they most assuredly did play footsies with the subprime industry.

McCain did eff up on this one, though he'll probably get away with it. I'm not sure Obama's masterful yielding during this crisis will impress voters, either, but they'll probably forget that, too.

|9.29.08 @ 6:21PM|#

Anyone who believes this BS should look into utube videos of Nancy Pelosi. She and a host of other democrats are berating regulators that were investigating and warning about Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in 2004. Republican or Democrat we should throw all these bums out.

joe|9.29.08 @ 6:39PM|#

Fransico Torres,

You (ever so helpfully, in ALL CAPS) write WHAT DEREGULATION?

I count at least for posts before yours from people answering exactly that question.

The whole "nobody can answer my question" shtick doesn't work when the answers are right there, on the screen, where everybody can read them.

Agree with them, disagree, dispute the, whatever, but you just look stupid pretending not to see them.

joe|9.29.08 @ 6:41PM|#

Pro Lib,

According to your own link, Freddie and Fannie together accounted for 18% of all such securities purchased in 2007. Leaving 82% to the private sector. That sounds an awful lot like "bit player" to me.

Kolohe|9.29.08 @ 9:09PM|#

Can someone with more knowledge of parliamentary procedures than me answer a serious question?

I don't watch much C-Span, but Barney yielded Pelosi one minute, the chair recognized her for one minute, and that speech was way longer than one minute. How does that work?

Spitballing here, but like most rules, they only matter when enforced.

The speaker pro temp (whoever's sitting on the high chair front and center) is iirc in charge of enforcing the rules. And he or she is probably going to cut some slack to a (the?)senior person of their party.

Kolohe|9.29.08 @ 9:11PM|#

According to your own link, Freddie and Fannie together accounted for 18% of all such securities purchased in 2007. Leaving 82% to the private sector. That sounds an awful lot like "bit player" to me.

I'm sorry, though I'm carrying water for the CRA side, you can't say that any enitity in any market with 1/5 of the market share is a bit player. Normally someone that big is a market maker.

Kolohe|9.29.08 @ 9:12PM|#

"I'm *not* carrying water for the CRA side"

|9.30.08 @ 12:35AM|#

I just got the chance to watch the speech and... what was she trying to accomplish, again?

While there's much I disagree with, there's a lot that's right on and passionately expressed. The problem is, were I from, say, New Zealand and knew nothing of the politics and personalities involved, I would have expected her to end with, "and that, Mr. Speaker, is why I cannot, and could not ever, support this bill."

In that I believe she wanted the opposite, that seems like a strange way to go.

That said, God bless her and God bless the House for the ignoble end the bill was brought to. I don't think of felt this way since the first time I saw the Death Star blown up.

Blink|9.30.08 @ 9:08AM|#

Still waiting for someone to answer Matt's question. . .

|9.30.08 @ 10:15AM|#

Blink,

Five different comments answering Matt's question were posted by 4:10 yesterday.

Did you read the thread?