In a blistering confrontation with then-Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan during a 2003 Congressional Hearing (see video below) — five years before the 2008 meltdown of Wall Street — then-Rep. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) revealed why he may be better positioned now to square off against right-wing economics than Hillary Clinton who, twenty years ago, served as a member of the Wal-Mart Board of Directors.
(The Arkansas-based company was a principal beneficiary of President Bill Clinton’s decision to ram NAFTA through on the fast track. And, even now, though Hillary has been critical of a number of the company’s practices, influential members of the Walton family, the mega-billionaire owners of the retail giant, have been very supportive of the Clintons.)
During that 2003 hearing, as revealed by this must-see video compiled by Sanders supporters, the Congressman arguably demolished not only Greenspan, but the fundamentalist market-based economics that remain the centerpiece of today’s Republican Party and at the center of the dispute over new international trade agreements, such as the TPP.
After chastising the Fed Chairman for being out of touch with the needs of ordinary Americans — “You don’t know what’s going on in the real world!” — Sanders unleashed this…
While Sanders neither mentioned Hillary Clinton then, and no doubt would refrain from anything resembling a personal attack now, his remarks help illustrate why the Wal-Mart-connected Hillary may be ill-positioned to serve as the Democratic Party’s instrument for meaningful economic reform…
You have told the American people that you support a trade policy, which is selling them out — only working for the CEOs who can take our plants to China, Mexico and India.
When Greenspan responded to Sanders by claiming “we have the highest standard of living in the world,” the Congressman rejoined before he could even finish: “No we do not! You go to Scandinavia and you will find that people have a much higher standard of living in terms of education, healthcare and decent paying jobs!”
As the video below, created by supporters of Sanders’ run for the 2016 Democratic nomination for President, also illustrates, while the economy was imploding several years later following years of economic policies endorsed by Greenspan and defended during that 2003 confrontation with the Vermont Congressman, the former Fed Chair would finally offer a mea culpa of sorts, admitting he’d erred.
Video of then-Rep. Bernie Sanders’ 2003 confrontation with then-Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan and then the former Fed Chair’s later admission that his fundamentalist market-based ideology was “flawed”…
I saw this Sanders video before I came here. Guess I’m up on this shit!
Got my Bernie Sanders T-shirt in the mail! I’m loaded for bear!
The video opens with a camera pan of the House chamber and a yawning Rahm Emanuel….in retrospect, you can almost SEE what was going through that little jagoff’s head as the exemplary Bernie Sanders began his remarks….you know what’s going through MY head???….fuck the DLC, fuck the neoliberal conserva-dems, fuck the corporate agenda masturbating BOTH of our political parties into a stupor of postcoital somnambulism….more and more Americans are waking up to the reek of whorehouse governance….this whole thing’s gonna blow, and yes, a change is gonna come (thank you, thank you)….When you pass a turning point, and then go wilfully on past a tipping point and a snapping point and a breaking point, you reach a flash point in a society….we’re there, folks….and all bets are off….
re you really comparing the congress to a whore house?
Stop demeaning whores, brother! 🙂
Looks like I lost a letter there. ^^
I called Mike Lee’s office to ask if he supported the TPP. His secretary told me he didn’t vote because somebody in his family was having twins.
How cute.
“There’s a big club, and you ain’t in it.”
-Carlin