Mid South Bank’s CEO Rusty Clouthier Drops “Truth Bomb” on Wall Street (CNBC Clip)

Guest post by Slider from SliderOnTheBlack.com

Did you happen to catch Mid South Bank President and CEO R.J. “Rusty” Clouthier on CNBC’s Squawk Box a few weeks ago?

This 5 minute and 21 second clip may contain more practical wisdom about the roots of the banking crisis than would an entire semester at the Wharton School of Business.

Clouthier who served six years on the Fed’s board, said that unless we break up the big banks that pose systemic risk and get back to sound banking, we’re just going to re-live this again.

CNBC’s Joe Kernen asked Clouthier if he had any of these esoteric mortgage, or derivative products and problems in his bank, and asked him if he saw this banking crisis coming?

Clouthier replied that he did not have any toxic mortgage products, and added that he knew the banking crisis was coming as soon as Gramm-Leach-Bliley was passed in 1999.

Clouthier went on to place much of the blame for this crisis squarely on the shoulders of Alan Greenspan. He went on to say that Greenspan actually approved the Citi - Travelers merger when it was illegal and told them to just go and get the law changed, which they did by repealing key components of Glass-Steagall with Gramm Leach Bliley.

Thank you Rusty Clouthier for speaking the truth.

Nobel Prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz has also gone on record as citing the roots of the crisis with Gramm Leach Bliley. And another Nobel Prize winner, Paul Krugman, went as far as to call Senator Phil Gramm “the father” of the financial crisis.

And let’s not forget the role that Wendy Gramm played in Gramm Leach Bliley. Here’s a great article on the “Mother of Enron” Wendy Gramm…

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/9/15/114017/631/577/599447

It amazes me that Alan Greenspan has not had to go into hiding in exile, or that another “Father” of the crisis - Hank “The Extortionist” Paulsonhasn’t been run out of the country, all the way to China.

Paulson of course, was the architect and chief lobbyist while CEO at Goldman, instrong-arming the SEC to allow the investment banks to self-regulate and to lift the SEC’s limits on their leveraging of capital from 12:1 to 30-40-50:1.

You can thank Hank for the resulting failures of Lehman and Bear Stearns, the rescue of Merrill, and the bailout of Goldman and Morgan Stanley.

Here’s two excellent articles detailing Paulson’s role as one of the chief architechts of the financial crisis.

http://www.tinyrevolution.com/mt/archives/002602.html

http://www.nysun.com/business/ex-sec-official-blames-agency-for-blow-up/86130/

Break up the banks now too big to fail. Limit the leveraging of capital. Get rid of unregulated derivatives. And return to the sound banking principles of the Rusty Clouthier’s of the banking world.

Almost too simple isn’t it?

Of course it is. So now we’re turning over near “dictatorial” powers to the privately owned Federal Reserve, and expanding it’s powers outside the banking system.

Instead of sending the looters to prison and reforming the system, we’ve just handed them the keys to the entire US economy.

America - WAKE UP!

This isn’t reform, this is the final Coup d’Etat.

    

Please HELP by emailing this story to a few friends.  Greater awareness by the sheeple is pretty much the only way we're ever going to stop the heist.  Send 2 emails and I'll get off your back.  Thank you.

Comments

[Nona Cents]

I've been reading ever since I first saw you posting on TechCrunch, I'm so glad I clicked on your link. These people - and the politicians they place in the White House and on the Hill - are ruining our country. I'm not sure America is really a democracy anymore. How do you get people off their ass for anything that doesn't have to do with American Idol, coupons for free KFC or the new iPhone? We should be marching in the streets against these forms of economic terrorism! Yeah, I said it.

[DailyBail]

Nona.

Yes it's EXTREMELY frustrating...The best strategy we've got at the moment is an attempt to promote greater public awareness.

For certain videos, I request readers email the clips to friends...in a month we have had 300,000 emailed links...it's a start....talk to me in 3 months and I think we will have made some decent progress.

Thanks for you comment...

And did you mean you have been reading since my comments in Tech Crunch in January or the recent comments I've made there...?

[Nona Cents]

Hi DailyBail,

I read your comment on TechCrunch yesterday. I read Talking Points Memo and someone emailed me a link to their feature on TechCrunch. I will start emailing video links, too. What you're doing here is noble and necessary. Keep it up!

[Wil Martindale]

Another great post.
I was pretty serious when I said that Madoff should've gotten 50, Paulson 50, Geithner 50 and Summers the chair.
Hey, you should also check out the Wiliam K. Black video from Bill Moyers Journal. It is one of my all-time favorites and would be another good one for DB.
http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/04032009/watch.html

BTW, geat job on the BND post and THANKS!
WM
http://letthemfail.us

[gobias bluth]

Wow, these Federal Reserve guys are all over the place. They know that the Group of Thirty will be regulating them soon. This guy, Rusty, was so lame that he couldn't even mention Bernanke and Geithner. As you can see, I don't take much stock in what they have to say. They have already been corrupted by the central bank. Now you know why these guys are where they are today, they served their time at the Fed and are dutiful soldiers. It may be impossible to grab this problem and yank it out by the roots.

[Nathan Snail]

the corrupt government is counting on 'inaction' by the Sheeple, and to some extent, they even expect insurrection and rioting, and that's why 'XE' is still around, because they cannot afford to have 150,000 or more pissed-off, angry, and quite frankly, feeling like 'idiots' G.I.'s who went to wars based solely on 'lies' to come home to this 'nightmare torture gulag' they've all been missing out on since they got shipped off to endless war in Afghanistan and soon, Iran.

the answer lies in the people waking the F**K up, but don't hold your breath. Seems that 'american idle' (my view of that crap) and the clicker are the sheeple's new pacifier rings.

at some point, the total collapse of the nation will then wake people the F**K up, and when that happens, there'll be a lot of U.S. cities burning.

the Obomb-a-TON is in on this, with his Goldman Sachs head looter, Geithner. This is all by design, it's called "highway robbery" when the intentional destruction of the 'middle class' is being engineered to transfer the wealth to the richest 1 percent of the people on the globe.

The Rothschilds and the Bilderbergers, more precisely. And this must stop. It really must end. We must end this charade, or we can kiss this nation forever goodbye. It's over with if they win, and they CANNOT WIN.

[gobias bluth]

Nathan is right.

DailyBail, Drudge has jumped the shark. It has shifted to the left and now all kinds of half-braked stories are taking it over.

Opportunity is knocking but you would need to commit to big stories and leave the white noise stories for Katie Couric and now Drudge.

You wanted advice, you and I may have a long attention span for the news, most don't. Most people can't reconcile their bank account let alone understand the need to short Treasuries. I know you are focused on the economic collapse but it is time to branch out a bit. Tell us who is good, who is bad, what are the big news stories, what is on the news horizon, and what are we overlooking? Billy Mays is dead but Ben Bernanke is still pitching the biggest criminal enterprise in the history of mankind.

Big Stories Today…
1 Obama’s Popularity Waning Fast Due to Many Failures and No Successes
2 North Korea
3 Stock Market is Tanking (Dead Cat Bounce is Over)
4 Obama Pulling Funding for Missile Defense and Other State of the Art Military Projects
5 LCROSS is Sending High Resolution Photos of the Moon (What are we looking for and what have we found?)

On the Horizon…
1 Currency Crisis
2 Obama to “Nationalize” the Airline Industry
3 Israel to Attack Iran
4 Barry Soetoro Visits MJLand (Graceland) with Daughters

[James H]

"...and Summers the chair."

It's sparkling little gems like this one that brighten my day. Thanks, Wil.

PS Liked the NDSB piece -- and especially liked seeing that you've been on the anti-bailout wagon since September. Anger is good. Nurture it. Keep up the good work.

[James H]

Chuck Todd. LOL! If anyone over the age of 35 deserves a wedgie, it's Chuck Todd. I would bet a nickel to the hole in a doughnut, Chuck Todd does not know the Federal Reserve system from a plate of hominy grits. Look at the priceless expression on his face as Ron Paul wraps up his answer. He has no freaking idea what Ron Paul is talking about. What an idiot. Nevermind giving him a wedgie. We should rename the wedgie and call it the "Chuck Todd." (Just for starters, I'd say Paul Krugman is just begging for a "Chuck Todd.")

[DailyBail]

Thanks Nona for your help in spreading the word.

@ Wil.

I covered William Black on the Moyers show. Good eye. Here's my coverage:

http://dailybail.com/home/sl-regulation-heavywieght-william-black-charges-geithner-sum.html


Thanks for your comments Nathan.


@Gobias

It's me alone running this thing for now...I will have a few interns in teh Fall...Excellent synopsis on your part...feel free to provide links on any and all stories in our comments section...I will do what I can to cover more but I need to remain somehwat focused on our core issues...teh Fed, corruption in Washington and the bailouts.

@ James...good to have you around as always...I agree that Wil does a great job with his site...and his article was very well done.

[marty]

www.losthorizons.com file a true and accurate return!!!! learn!!!!