There are plenty of reasons to not support any candidate who wishes to run on the legacy of the Bill Clinton years of the 1990s, and there is a continuation of that legacy in the Hillary Clinton campaign. It has to do with the sub-prime meltdown and the looming recession, and a law firm that was involved and may ultimately profit.

A Feb. 1 New York Times article, "Small Law Firm's Big Role in Bundling Mortgages," states, "[law firm] McKee Nelson helped investment banks and mortgage lenders bundle home loans into securities--lots of them. Since 2000, McKee has been involved in almost 3,300 deals totaling $2.7 trillion, according to Asset Backed Alert, an industry newsletter." The meltdown of the larger economic picture--from IRAs to 401k plans to retirement funds--has been driven largely by the continuing default on home sub-prime loans, which were bundled into these securities, which were purchased in the market with yet more loans. This is a major reason why banks are now afraid to lend to one another, and why the Federal Reserve is in a panic to slash interest rates in a futile effort to ward off recession. According to this same NYT article, the state of New York--Hillary Clinton's home state--has subpoenaed many Wall Street banks for failing to disclose the risks of the mortgage-backed securities. It was the McKee Nelson law firm that wrote the "prospectuses for the[se] securities" for the banks.

Now that the lawsuits are flying, the firm's namesake is poised and has promised, according to the NYT article, "to represent investment banks, hedge funds and other financial companies, as well as their executives, in a variety of litigation." Pretty sweet.

A quick search shows that at least two lawyers from that firm are donors to the Hillary Clinton campaign, to the tune of tens of thousands. Since the firm is from Clinton's home state, it might be worth asking why this conflict of interest is being allowed on her watch.

The current economic downturn is related to the accelerated globalization of the 1990s. According to a Jan. 31 Financial Times article, "Buyers, not savers, caused America's deficit," it was the over-consumption of the American consumer that has created the glut of capital in developing countries (who make the stuff we buy), while workers in those countries could only afford domestically-made products in their respective countries. This led to the US's huge trade deficit. This also fueled the purchase of dollars by these countries, and their subsequent investment in the US economy--the liquidity that fueled the credit bubble. This consequence of globalization is a result of Clinton-era policies in support of NAFTA, CAFTA, FTAA, WTO, and domestic "reforms" that propped up "free trade." The over-consumption was encouraged by sub-prime and "NINJA" loans (No Income, No Job, or Assets) driven by the demand for these risky but high return securities.

Another four years of the Clinton legacy would represent more policies that are hurting working people and eroding the middle class, the latter of which is capitalism's stop-gap prevention of the acceleration of class conflict in the US. Sure, things are "good" during the bubble. Hillary Clinton proposes a new bubble, that of green energy. While green energy is ultimately a good thing, all new technologies create a market bubble. This will be used to bail out the real estate bubble, like real estate was used to bail out the dot-com bubble. So, more of the same.