Signs of the Times Signs of the Times
When Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band opened the opulent new Staples Center in LA on October 17, the Jersey Troubadour had a few choice words for those watching from the l...
Nov 18, 1999 / Column / Eric Alterman
The People vs. the WTO The People vs. the WTO
The thousands of demonstrators who will greet the World Trade Organization delegates in Seattle on November 30 will have many voices but one message: The attempt to write a const...
Nov 18, 1999 / The Editors
Whose Trade? Whose Trade?
PARTICIPANTS IN THE FORUM Walden Bello, author of Dark Victory: The United States and Global Poverty (Food First), is executive director of the Bangkok-b
Nov 18, 1999 / Feature / Various Contributors
Missing in Action Missing in Action
The candidates are constantly reviewed. The questions raised by analysts include: Will Pat Buchanan matter as a mauler?
Nov 18, 1999 / Column / Calvin Trillin
Breaking Glass-Steagall Breaking Glass-Steagall
Although Wall Street has pushed for financial deregulation for two decades, it was last year’s merger of Citicorp and Travelers that set the stage for Congress’s effective revocation of the Glass-Steagall Act in late October. The merger was a violation of the longstanding laws separating banking and insurance companies, but Citicorp and Travelers, because they well knew their power to ram deregulation through Congress, exploited loopholes that gave them a temporary exemption. Indeed, further proving that Wall Street and Washington are two branches of the same firm, the newly formed Citigroup announced only days after the deal that it had hired recently departed Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin as a member of its three-person office of the chairman. With Citigroup’s co-CEO Sanford Weill and lobbyist Roger Levy leading the charge, industry executives and lobbyists badgered the Administration and swarmed the halls of Congress—vetting all drafts before they were introduced—as the final details of the deal were hammered out. Even more than usual, campaign contributions and lobby money greased the deal. The finance, insurance and real estate industries together are regularly the largest campaign contributors and biggest spenders on lobbying of all business sectors. They laid out more than $290 million for lobbying in 1998, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, and donated more than $150 million in the 1997–98 election cycle—a figure sure to be topped in 1999–2000. For their money, the finance industry bought not only the end of the Glass-Steagall Act but also the partial repeal of the Bank Holding Company Act. These landmark pieces of legislation, recognizing the inherent dangers of too great a concentration of financial power, barred common ownership of banks, insurance companies and securities firms and erected a wall of separation between banks and nonfinancial companies. Now the ban on common ownership has been lifted—and the wall separating banking and commerce is likely soon to be breached. The misnamed Financial Services Modernization Act will usher in another round of record-breaking mergers, as companies rush to combine into “one stop shopping” operations, concentrating financial power in trillion-dollar global giants and paving the way for future taxpayer bailouts of too-big-to-fail financial corporations. Regulation of this new universe will be minimal, with powers scattered among a half-dozen federal agencies and fifty state insurance departments—none with sufficient clout to do the job. The final two major debates over the bill’s provisions focused not on the core-questions of concentrated financial power and regulatory controls but on issues of privacy and lending practices. A coalition ranging from Representative Edward Markey to Senator Richard Shelby denounced the bill for permitting financial conglomerates to share customer information among affiliates, but their attempt to give consumers a right to block such privacy invasions failed. As a result, holding companies will be able to build individual marketing profiles that will include detailed personal data. Gaining this prerogative was a major consideration, as witnessed by the industry’s threats to walk away from the bill if privacy protections were included. The final hurdle to passage of the bill was the Community Reinvestment Act, which obligates banks to provide credit to citizens in minority and low- and moderate-income areas and which is the bête noire of Phil Gramm, chairman of the Senate Banking Committee. Gramm did not succeed in obliterating the CRA, but with the Clinton Administration’s acquiescence, he went a long way toward eviscerating it. Under the conference bill there will be no ongoing sanctions against holding company banks that fail to meet CRA standards. And it will lessen the number of CRA examinations, making it harder for regulators to insure that banks are complying with their obligations to the poor. There is much more that is wrong with the bill: It does not include adequate protections against redlining; it does not require banks to provide basic services to the poor, leaving them at the mercy of check-cashing shops and similar ripoff outfits; and it opens the way for the new conglomerates to gouge consumers. History will record this bill as a landmark in the march toward the consolidation of financial power in America.
Nov 15, 1999 / The Editors
War of Words War of Words
In May 1989 a small group of radio and newspaper journalists and media activists from Belgrade took over a small room in Central Belgrade that the Central Committee of the Yugosl...
Nov 11, 1999 / Feature / Veran Matic and Drazen Pantic
Indonesian Improvisation Indonesian Improvisation
Armed militias had forced most journalists to flee from East Timor by September 7, the day then-President B.J. Habibie and General Wiranto of Indonesia declared martial law for t...
Nov 11, 1999 / Feature / Suzanne Charlé
Media, Inside Out Media, Inside Out
The recent CBS-Viacom-bination--at $37 billion, the largest media deal ever--mirrored previous purchases, like Disney's acquisition of Capital Cities/ABC and Time Warner's taking...
Nov 11, 1999 / Feature / Rory O’Connor
The Cable Guise The Cable Guise
Ten years ago, as Hungary was roiling with democratic protests, the country had two television channels, both controlled by the state.
Nov 11, 1999 / Feature / Mark Schapiro
Emperor of the Air Emperor of the Air
If you combined the political roles of Republican front-runner George W.
Nov 11, 1999 / Feature / Alexander Stille