If Liberals are going to going to target Phil Gramm, et al, regarding Gramm-Leach-Bliley and its culpability in the current crisis with "folk economics", equal time should be given to the defenses of those that supported it.

Incidentally the vote on GLB was interesting. On Nov. 4 it passed in the Senate 90-8 and the House 362-57. Clinton signed it on Nov. 12, 1999.

Wikipedia offers a starting point for the defense:

In response to criticism of his signing the bill when President, Bill Clinton said in 2008:

"I don't see that signing that bill had anything to do with the current crisis. Indeed, one of the things that has helped stabilize the current situation as much as it has is the purchase of Merrill Lynch by Bank of America, which was much smoother than it would have been if I hadn't signed that bill ... On the Glass-Steagall thing, like I said, if you could demonstrate to me that it was a mistake, I'd be glad to look at the evidence." [20]

In February 2009, one of the act's co-authors, former Senator Phil Gramm, wrote in its defense that:

"...if GLB was the problem, the crisis would have been expected to have originated in Europe where they never had Glass-Steagall requirements to begin with. Also, the financial firms that failed in this crisis, like Lehman, were the least diversified and the ones that survived, like J.P. Morgan, were the most diversified.
" Moreover, GLB didn't deregulate anything. It established the Federal Reserve as a superregulator, overseeing all Financial Services Holding Companies. All activities of financial institutions continued to be regulated on a functional basis by the regulators that had regulated those activities prior to GLB." [21]

The economists Brad DeLong (of the University of California, Berkeley) and Tyler Cowen (of George Mason University in Virginia) have both argued that the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act softened the impact of the crisis.[22] Atlantic Monthly columnist Megan McArdle has argued that if the act was "part of the problem, it would be the commercial banks, not the investment banks, that were in trouble" and repeal would not have helped the situation.[23] An article in National Review has made the same argument, calling liberal allegations about the Act “folk economics”.[24]

I could find no articulate defenses of the evil twins Barney Frank and Chris Dodd in the Fannie and Freddy meltdown. I've seen videos where their own words indict them. In fact, I don't understand why they are investgating the meltdown and pointing fingers at everyone but themselves. Kind of like Charles Manson investigating the Tate/LaBianca murders or Jesse James investigating who robbed the bank. At the risk of hijacking the thread, not my intention, and rambling off point....I am reminded of Jamie Gorelick's appointment to the 911 Commission and investigating a disaster where she was a complicit actor. She also received an $800,000 bonus from Fannie Mae. Why do we tolerate these insults to our intelligence?

From a bunker in Lake Sumter Landing....have a great day in the Villages.