Saying “Wall Street gets whatever it wants, while Main Street gets nothing,” veteran actor and political activist Ed Asner is called for a revival of the Glass-Steagall banking law.
FDR STYLE: Ed Asner is going after the big banks — just like his hero Franklin Roosevelt did.
WASHINGTON – In a letter to his congressional delegates last week, Asner wrote:
“It is time to acknowledge that the so-called financial reform efforts made after the crash of September 2008, including the Dodd-Frank bill, have failed to address the fundamental problem that caused the crash, that of increasingly wild speculation by the largest banks and financial institutions.
“This speculation has gotten far worse since the 1999 repeal of Franklin Roosevelt’s Glass-Steagall Act, which served the nation well for more than six decades. Many of the financial institutions which engaged in the wild speculation which caused the crash, were involved in the campaign to repeal Glass-Steagall, and they oppose restoring it today.”
Asner, a self-described history buff, plays Roosevelt in a one-man show that’s been touring the country. He called FDR, who died when Asner was 14, one of his heroes.
The Emmy Award-winning actor, who starred in “Lou Grant” and the “Mary Tyler Moore Show,” went on to say:
“Since the passage of Dodd-Frank, the so-called Too Big to Fail banks have gotten larger. Despite trillions of dollars in bailouts, they are making fewer loans today than before the legislation, and the injustice implicit in that — that Wall Street gets whatever it wants, while Main Street gets nothing — has worsened.”
Glass-Steagall’s return would rebuild the protective wall separating commercial bank deposits from investment houses that trade in stocks, derivatives and a host of risky credit schemes. Nine years after the repeal of the 1933 law, the federal government bailed out failing Wall Street banks to the tune of more than $700 billion.
Supporters of Glass-Steagall — including Thomas Hoenig, vice chair of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., and former FDIC Chair Sheila Bair — say the boom-and-bust cycle is bound to repeat itself unless the financial law is re-enacted.
One reform bill, House Resolution 129, co-introduced by Reps. Marcy Kaptur, D-Ohio, and Walter Jones, R-N.C., has attracted more than 70 co-sponsors.
Two other Glass-Steagall bills are pending in the Senate: SB 985 by Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, and a similar measure co-sponsored by Sens. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass.; John McCain, R-Ariz.,;Angus King, I-Maine; and Maria Cantwell, D-Wash.
On Tuesday, Kaptur delivered a speech on the House floor, charging that “Wall Street turned our strong banking system into a haven for speculators.”
Though many financial pundits have dismissed the Glass-Steagall bills as “dead on arrival,” others see the movement as crucial to averting more Detroit-style bankruptcies.
Asner said he was “encouraged that there is a renewed action in support of restoring Glass-Steagall,” and urged lawmakers to follow through.
“I know that Wall Street lobbyists are spending millions to prevent Glass-Steagall from being passed. It will take courage to stand up to them, but I expect that from you.”
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