Text of the Glass-Steagall Act -
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and the district courts of the United States shall have original jurisdiction of all such suits;
Supremacy Clause Law & Legal Definition
- USLegal
Supremacy
Clause Law & Legal Definition
The Supremacy Clause states:
"This Constitution, and the laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the United States, shall be Supreme Law of the land; and the Judges in every state shall be bound thereby, any thing in the Constitution or Laws of any state to the contrary notwithstanding."
According to U.S. law treaties are those international agreements that receive the advice and consent of the Senate. (Article II, section 2, clause 2 of the Constitution). A treaty to which United States is a party is given status equal to that of a federal legislation and therefore forms a part of the Supreme law of the land.
This concept of federal supremacy was first developed by Chief Justice John Marshall in McCulloch v. Md., 17 U.S. 316, 406 (U.S. 1819), where the court held that the State of Maryland could not tax the Second Bank of United States, a branch of the National Bank. It was concluded that "the government of the Union, though limited in its power, is supreme and its laws, when made in pursuance of the constitution, form the supreme law of the land, "any thing in the constitution or laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding."
In Edgar v. Mite Corp., 457 U.S. 624, 632 (U.S. 1982) it was held that “a state statute is void to the extent that it actually conflicts with a valid federal statute” and that a conflict will be found either where compliance with both federal and state law is impossible or where the state law stands as an obstacle to the accomplishment and execution of the full purposes and objectives of Congress.
Similarly in Stone v. San Francisco, 968 F.2d 850, 862 (9th Cir. Cal. 1992) the court held on the issue of injunction and remediation, that "otherwise valid state laws or court orders cannot stand in the way of a federal court's remedial scheme if the action is essential to enforce the scheme. State policy must give way when it operates to hinder vindication of federal constitutional guarantees." http://definitions.uslegal.com/s/supremacy-clause/
". . . the district courts . . . shall also have exclusive original cognizance of all civil causes of admiralty and maritime jurisdiction . . . saving to suitors, in all cases, the right of a common law remedy, where the common law is competent to give it . . . see 53. 53 1 Stat. 76-77, The provision has been carried over in somwhat altered language, into 28 U.S.C.A. Stat. 1333; see infra at note 125.
You will find it in Law of Admiralty under Admiralty Jurisdiction in the United States. The Jurisdiction and Procedure of Courts Sec. 1-9. Cl.
Some of us kept our old Original Jurisdiction law books. V.K.D. http://nesaranews.blogspot.com/2014/03/breach-of-trust-fee-schedule.html#comment-form
- U.S.
Code › Title 28 › Part IV › Chapter 85 › § 1333
Glass–Steagall “repeal” and the financial crisis
Robert
Kuttner, Joseph Stiglitz, Elizabeth
Warren, Robert Weissman, Richard
D. Wolff and others have tied Glass–Steagall repeal to the late-2000s financial crisis. Kuttner
acknowledged “de facto enroads” before Glass–Steagall “repeal” but argued the
GLBA’s “repeal” had permitted “super-banks” to “re-enact the same kinds of
structural conflicts of interest that were endemic in the 1920s,” which he
characterized as “lending to speculators, packaging and securitizing credits
and then selling them off, wholesale or retail, and extracting fees at every
step along the way.”[47]
Stiglitz argued “the most important consequence of Glass–Steagall repeal” was
in changing the culture of commercial banking so that the “bigger risk” culture
of investment banking “came out on top.”[48]
He also argued the GLBA “created ever larger banks that were too big to be
allowed to fail,” which “provided incentives for excessive risk taking.”[49]
Warren explained Glass–Steagall had kept banks from doing “crazy things.” She
credited FDIC insurance, the Glass–Steagall separation of investment banking,
and SEC regulations as providing “50 years without a crisis” and argued that
crises returned in the 1980s with the “pulling away of the threads” of
regulation.[50]
Weissman agrees with Stiglitz that the “most important effect” of
Glass–Steagall “repeal” was to “change the culture of commercial banking to
emulate Wall Street's high-risk speculative betting approach.”[51]
Legislative history of the Glass–Steagall Act
As described in the 1933 Banking Act article, many accounts of the Act identify the Pecora Investigation as important in leading to the Act, particularly its Glass–Steagall provisions, becoming law.[19] While supporters of the Glass–Steagall separation of commercial and investment banking cite the Pecora Investigation as supporting that separation,[20] Glass–Steagall critics have argued that the evidence from the Pecora Investigation did not support the separation of commercial and investment banking.[21]
This source states that Senator Glass proposed many versions of his bill to Congress known as the Glass Bills in the two years prior to the Glass-Steagall Act being passed. It also includes how the deposit insurance provisions of the bill were very controversial at the time, which almost led to the rejection of the bill once again.
The previous Glass Bills before the final revision all had similar goals and brought up the same objectives which were to separate commercial from investment banking, bring more banking activities under Federal Reserve supervision and to allow branch banking. In May 1933 Steagall’s addition of allowing state chartered banks to receive federal deposit insurance and shortening the time in which banks needed to eliminate securities affiliates to one year was known as the driving force of what helped the Glass-Steagall act to be signed into law.
The Glass–Steagall provisions separating
commercial and investment banking
- dealing in
non-governmental securities for customers
- investing
in non-investment grade securities for themselves
- underwriting
or distributing non-governmental securities
- affiliating
(or sharing employees) with companies involved in such activities
The law gave banks one year after the law was passed on June 16, 1933 to decide whether they would be a commercial bank or an investment bank. Only 10 percent of a commercial bank's income could stem from securities. One exception to this rule was that commercial banks could underwrite government issued bonds.
There were several “loopholes” that regulators and financial firms were able to exploit during the lifetime of Glass-Steagall restrictions. Aside from the Section 21 prohibition on securities firms taking deposits, neither savings and loans nor state charted banks that did not belong to the Federal Reserve System were restricted by Glass-Steagall. Glass-Steagall also did not prevent securities firms from owning such institutions. S&Ls and securities firms took advantage of these loopholes starting in the 1960s to create products and affiliated companies that chipped away at commercial banks' deposit and lending businesses.
While permitting affiliations between securities firms and companies other than Federal Reserve member banks, Glass-Steagall distinguished between what a Federal Reserve member bank could do directly and what an affiliate could do. Whereas a Federal Reserve member bank could not buy, sell, underwrite, or deal in any security except as specifically permitted by Section 16, such a bank could affiliate with a company so long as that company was not “engaged principally” in such activities. Starting in 1987, the Federal Reserve Board interpreted this to mean a member bank could affiliate with a securities firm so long as that firm was not “engaged principally” in securities activities prohibited for a bank by Section 16. By the time the GLBA repealed the Glass-Steagall affiliation restrictions, the Federal Reserve Board had interpreted this “loophole” in those restrictions to mean a banking company (Citigroup, as owner of Citibank) could acquire one of the world’s largest securities firms (Salomon Smith Barney), as described in the article Glass–Steagall: decline.
By defining commercial banks as banks that take in deposits and make loans and investment banks as banks that underwrite and deal with securities the Glass Steagall act explained the separation of banks by stating that commercial banks could not deal with securities and investment banks could not own commercial banks or have close connections with them. With the exception of commercial banks being allowed to underwrite government issued bonds, commercial banks could only have ten percent of their income come from securities.
The Glass Steagall Legislation page specifies that only Federal Reserve member banks were affected by the provisions which according to secondary sources the act “applied direct prohibitions to the activities of certain commercial banks.
Glass–Steagall decline & effective repeal
In the 1960s the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency issued aggressive interpretations of Glass-Steagall to permit national banks to engage in certain securities activities. Although most of these interpretations were overturned by court decisions, by the late 1970s bank regulators began issuing Glass-Steagall interpretations that were upheld by courts and that permitted banks and their affiliates to engage in an increasing variety and amount of securities activities. Starting in the 1960s banks and non-banks developed financial products that blurred the distinction between banking and securities products, as they increasingly competed with each other.
Separately, starting in the 1980s Congress debated bills to repeal Glass-Steagall’s affiliation provisions (Sections 20 and 32). In 1999 the Gramm–Leach–Bliley Act repealed those provisions.
These and other developments are described in detail in the main article, Glass–Steagall: decline, under the following topic headings:
- Glass–Steagall
developments from 1935 to 1991
- Senator
Glass’s “repeal” effort
- Comptroller
Saxon’s Glass–Steagall interpretations
- 1966
to 1980 developments
- Increasing
competitive pressures for commercial banks
- Limited
congressional and regulatory developments
- Reagan
Administration developments
- State
non-member bank and nonbank bank “loopholes”
- Legislative
response
- International
competitiveness debate
- 1987
status of Glass–Steagall debate
- Section
20 affiliates
- Greenspan-led
Federal Reserve Board
- 1991
Congressional action and “firewalls”
- 1980s
and 1990s bank product developments
- Securitization,
CDOs, and “subprime” credit
- ABCP
conduits and SIVs
- OTC
derivatives, including credit default swaps
- Glass–Steagall
development from 1995 to Gramm–Leach–Bliley Act
- Leach
and Rubin support for Glass–Steagall “repeal”; need to address “market
realities”
- Status
of arguments from 1980s
- Failed
1995 Leach bill; expansion of Section 20 affiliate activities; merger of
Travelers and Citicorp
- 1997-98
legislative developments: commercial affiliations and Community
Reinvestment Act
- 1999
Gramm–Leach–Bliley Act, eliminating
legal barriers between commercial banks, investment banks, securities
firms, and insurance companies
One of the most significant weakness of the act was the restrictions put on the separation of the investment and commercial banking, it prohibited the bank underwriting. Due to the restrictions put on banks for underwriting securities, some banks could not keep up with their competition, so a repeal for the act was put on. The repeal included many things but the most important was the repeal of separation of investment and commercial banking and the limited of underwriting securities.
That an appeal was necessary because banks were losing their competition, also by allowing banks to underwrite securities, it would allow to create a better relationship with customers and help maintain a customer loyalty to the bank. Also, by having investment and banking activities operate in the same institution, it would make the industry more credible because of diversification.
Aftermath of repeal
After the financial crisis of 2007–08, however, many commentators argued that the repeal of Sections 20 and 32 had played an important role in leading to the crisis. Other commentators argued that the repeal had helped end, or mitigate, the crisis.
The main article on this subject, Glass–Steagall: Aftermath of repeal, has sections on:
- Commentator response to
Section 20 and 32 repeal
- Financial industry
developments after repeal of Sections 20 and 32
- Glass–Steagall “repeal” and
the financial crisis
Glass Steagall in post-financial crisis reform
debate
Please see the main article, Glass–Steagall in post-financial crisis reform debate, for information about the following topics:
- Failed
2009-10 efforts to restore Glass–Steagall Sections 20 and 32 as part of
Dodd–Frank
- Post-2010
efforts to enact Glass–Steagall inspired financial reform legislation
- Volcker
Rule ban on proprietary trading as Glass–Steagall lite
- Further
financial reform proposals that refer to Glass–Steagall
- UK
and EU “ring fencing” proposals
- Similar
issues debated in connection with Glass–Steagall and “firewalls”
- Limited
purpose banking and narrow banking
- Wholesale
financial institutions in Glass–Steagall reform debate
- Glass–Steagall
references in reform proposal debate