October 13: On Bill Moyers Journal, Kaptur Calls for Reform of Financial System
October 14, 2009
Congresswoman Kaptur also urged Congress to increase by tenfold the number of FBI agents assigned to mortgage and securities fraud cases. “It’s very easy to look at the budget of the FBI in mortgage fraud and securities fraud and say, 'How serious is the government?' And until those numbers increase, we will not begin to get justice,” she said.
Kaptur was joined on the highly-acclaimed public affairs program by Simon Johnson, former chief economist for the International Monetary Fund.
Kaptur said “imprudent, irresponsible” behavior by large banks often involved fraud. “They have really gambled,” she said, “and when they lost their shifted their losses to the taxpayer… “What they’re doing is taking their mistakes and they’re dumping them on the taxpayer—you and I. The long-term debt of our country and our children and grandchildren—it’s all at risk because of their behavior… “It’s socialism for the big banks. Because they've basically taken their mistakes and they've put it on the taxpayer. That's the government. That's socialism. That isn't capitalism.” Moyers noted that Kaptur has a prominent role in “Capitalism, a Love Story,” the new film by Oscar-winning filmmaker Michael Moore.
Kaptur charged Congress with failing to rein in the large financial institutions. “The laws of Congress passed last year in terms of housing were hollow… Foreclosures in my area have gone up 94 percent. And we know the basic rules of economics. Housing leads us to recovery. Housing was the precipitating factor in this economic downturn. Unless you deal with the housing sector, you aren't going to have growth in this economy.”
She said homeowners who are facing foreclosure “deserve justice, too. And the scales of justice in front of the Supreme Court are supposed to be balanced, and they’re not.” Homeowners have a right to legal representation, she said, and “a right before the judge to have the mortgage note produced by whomever in the system has it.” Kaptur has urged homeowners facing foreclosure to be “squatters in your own homes.”
Asked by Moyers whether President Obama should fire Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner and National Economic Counselor Larry Summers, Kaptur said, “I don’t think any individuals who had their hands on creating this mess should be in charge of cleaning it up. I honestly don’t think they’re capable of it…When Lincoln ran into trouble, during the Civil War, he got new generals. He brought in Grant. I hope that President Obama will bring in some new generals on the financial front.”
Congress, she charged, “has really shut down. I’m disappointed in both chambers, because wouldn't you think, with the largest financial crisis in American history, in the largest transfer of wealth from the American people to the biggest banks in this country, that every committee of Congress would be involved in hearings, that this would be on the news, that people would be engaged in this?
“What we’re seeing is tangential hearings on very arcane aspects of financial reform. For example, now we're going to have a consumer protection agency to help the poor consumer, who doesn't understand all of this, rather than hearings on the fundamental new architecture of reforming the American financial system, so that we have prudent lending, capital accumulation at the local level again; that we encourage savings and limit debt by the American people. Our country needs this. Those aren't the hearings that are happening.”
She said deregulation of financial services “opened the floodgates” to the current economic crisis. “All the abuses and the irresponsible and imprudent behavior of the 1990s … led to this. Nobody did anything. They just kept opening more floodgates to them. And then with the removal of Glass-Steagall in 1999 …we just gave them total abandon. And they took it.”
Congresswoman Kaptur also repeated her call to take the money out of politics.