An important issue highlighted by

Citizens Electoral Council of Australia

Media Release Friday, 3 February 2017

Craig Isherwood‚ National Secretary
PO Box 376‚ COBURG‚ VIC 3058
Phone: 1800 636 432
Email: cec@cecaust.com.au
Website: http://www.cecaust.com.au

The 1933 Glass-Steagall banking separation policy has been reintroduced into the US Congress, and now the focus is whether President Trump’s administration will follow through on his 26 October campaign pledge to enact a “21st Century Glass-Steagall”.

This is timely to say the least, as more and more signs are pointing to a new, far worse financial crash than that of 2008. The Italy-centred European banking crisis threatens both London, where most of the derivatives infecting the European banks are traded, and Wall Street, which has a US$2 trillion exposure to European banks. British banking experts are warning that eight years after the last crash the UK’s banks still are not safe. Wall Street’s biggest Too-Big-To-Fail banks are holding hundreds of trillions of dollars of dangerous derivatives bets that are many times their assets: JPMorgan’s are 20 times their assets, Citibank’s 28 times, Morgan Stanley’s 34 times, and Goldman Sachs’ 51 times! And Australia is experiencing a rise in mortgage delinquencies, such that the number of households behind in payments rose 25 per cent last year, while the number behind by three months or more jumped 41 per cent—another threat to the property bubble that will bankrupt Australia’s derivatives-addicted banks when it bursts.

Only a full Glass-Steagall separation of commercial banking that serves everyday people and the real economy, from investment banking that gambles in dangerous derivatives, will protect the economy from another financial crash.

Read the complete article here.