From: AlterNet
by Ellen Brown
Photo Credit: Shutterstock.com
August 19, 2013
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Before Eliot Spitzer’s infamous resignation as governor of New York
in March 2008, he was one of our fiercest champions against Wall Street
corruption, in a state that had some of the toughest legislation for
controlling the banks. It may not be a coincidence that the revelation
of his indiscretions with a high-priced call girl came less than a month
after he published a bold editorial in the Washington Post titled “ Predatory Lenders’ Partner in Crime:
How the Bush Administration Stopped the States from Stepping in to Help
Consumers.” The editorial exposed the collusion between the Treasury,
the Federal Reserve and Wall Street in deregulating the banks in the
guise of regulating them, by taking regulatory power away from the
states. It was an issue of the federal government versus the states,
with the Feds representing the banks and the states representing
consumers.
Five years later, Spitzer has set out to take some of that local
regulatory power back, in his run for New York City comptroller.
Mounting the attack against him, however, are not just Wall Street banks
but women’s groups opposed to this apparent endorsement of the
exploitation of women. On August 17th, the New York Post endorsed
Spitzer’s opponent and ran a scathing cover story attempting to
embarrass Spitzer based on the single issue of his personal life.
Lynn Parramore, who considers herself a feminist, countered
in an August 8th Huffington Post article that it is likely to be in the
best interests of the very women who are opposing him to forgive and
move on. His stand for women’s reproductive rights and other feminist
issues is actually quite strong, and his role as Wall Street watchdog
protected women from predatory financial practices. As New York Attorney
General, he was known as the “Sheriff of Wall Street.” He is one of the
few people with not only the insight and experience to expose Wall
Street corruption but the courage to go after the perpetrators.
Targeted for Take-down
The February 2008 Washington Post article that preceded Spitzer’s
political travails was written when the state attorneys general were
being preempted by the Federal Reserve as watchdogs of the banks.
Critics called it a case of the fox guarding the hen house. Spitzer wrote:
Several years ago, state attorneys general and others involved in consumer protection began to notice a marked increase in a range of predatory lending practices by mortgage lenders. . . . These and other practices, we noticed, were having a devastating effect on home buyers. In addition, the widespread nature of these practices, if left unchecked, threatened our financial markets.
Even though predatory lending was becoming a national problem, the Bush administration looked the other way and did nothing to protect American homeowners. In fact, the government chose instead to align itself with the banks that were victimizing consumers. . . . [A]s New York attorney general, I joined with colleagues in the other 49 states in attempting to fill the void left by the federal government. . . .
Not only did the Bush administration do nothing to protect consumers, it embarked on an aggressive and unprecedented campaign to prevent states from protecting their residents from the very problems to which the federal government was turning a blind eye. . . . The administration accomplished this feat through an obscure federal agency called the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC). . . . In 2003, during the height of the predatory lending crisis, the OCC invoked a clause from the 1863 National Bank Act to issue formal opinions preempting all state predatory lending laws, thereby rendering them inoperative. The OCC also promulgated new rules that prevented states from enforcing any of their own consumer protection laws against national banks. The federal government’s actions were so egregious and so unprecedented that all 50 state attorneys general, and all 50 state banking superintendents, actively fought the new rules. But the unanimous opposition of the 50 states did not deter, or even slow, the Bush administration in its goal of protecting the banks. In fact, when my office opened an investigation of possible discrimination in mortgage lending by a number of banks, the OCC filed a federal lawsuit to stop the investigation.
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