Well that didn't take long: GOP Opposes Financial Reform

What I like about the GOP idea is having a standard amount of capital and liquidity, based on stress tests. I mean they are there now, but I think you get a cleaner assesment of risk in a financial if you have some kind of oversight of the rating agencies.

The Democratic idea on this is wholly dependent on whoever happens to manning that committee.

 

I dunno. When it comes to Wall Street investments, what do they say? "Past performance is no guarantee of future performance". However, if the past performance in multiple instances wipes out your investment - maybe you want to try a different broker.

And so if in multiple "past performances" the republicans "JUST SAY NO", maybe Harry is right to try something different.

I kinda like the way the cards are falling to the dems now. Republicans oppose reform - so dems can hit them hard. Republicans counter-propose a few changes (not all of them bad). Dems can cherrypick some and include them, pulling the rug out from under the "PARTY OF NO". That might get some of the center behind them.

But it won't matter to the republican base & tea-partiers. Nothing Congress can do can change the fact that Obama is a communist-fascist-muslim darkie.

 

Well, Obama can tell them how much they would receive. He has done it before.

 

Probably splitting hairs, but wasn't it specifically because they were abusing their monopoly by putting all of their smaller competition out of business? Which ended up coming back to bite them when Ida Tarbell went after them as revenge for what they did to her father's business.

Ditto, though mine is with Fidelity. Probably similar terms as Schwab has.

What else is new? Up is down, hot is cold. Welcome to the modern conservative movement. What else can you do when thirty years of your economic theories go up in smoke?

You know you've lost touch with reality when libertarians at the Cato Institute accuse you of living in an "epistemic closure".

 

F this bootleg liberal media of ours...
(Anyone saw more coverage of this protest?)


10,000 March In Showdown On Wall Street; Mainstream Media Ignores Them



Blog link
"The signs were non-partisan and dealt with real problems -- namely, this country's rogue, unregulated finance sector. There was only one puppet, a fanged vampire squid meant to symbolize Goldman Sachs. The banners declared "Wall Street: Never Again" and "Less Audis, More Audits." Almost to a one, they echoed the clear policy demands of the day: regulatory reform, new taxes on banks and speculators, and a jobs bill.

The afternoon began with direct action protests in the lobbies of Wells Fargo and J.P. Morgan Chase. Next came a series of speakers -- teachers, students, workers -- that put New York City faces on the nationwide hard times. Representing hundreds of labor, religious and community groups, they demanded Wall Street do its part to fix the mess it created. They railed against budget cuts in city housing, health and education, overseen by the city's billionaire mayor who opposes a financial transaction tax.

"The result of these cuts will be more homelessness, more joblessness and more hunger," said Sean Banks, a high school teacher in Brooklyn. The planned cuts will also result in bigger class sizes. Currently the New York state House and Senate are considering bills that would see New York lay off between 4,000 and 8,500 teachers.

Before leading the march to the Bowling Green Bull, the AFL-CIO's Richard Trumka issued a direct three-part challenge to the banks: stop fighting reform and call off the lobbyists; stop speculating and start lending; and "take responsibility for the mess you made."

The demands resonated with a crowd thick with the unemployed and city workers facing layoffs in their departments and agencies. "These bankers have no shame," said Marie Mitchell, a city clerical worker. "I saw the Goldman Sachs guys on TV the other day, still refusing to apologize for anything. They should be sent to jail, like Madoff."

 

Wall Street Reform just passed 59-39...will have to reconcile with House bill..... Four Reeps sided with the Dems......
anyone feel free to share an opinion as to how beneficial/harmful -and/or doing too little/not going far enough -this bill can be and in what areas....

 

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2010/05/20/business/20100520-regulation-graphic.html

A Good table from the NY Times explaining what's in the bill, and the differences between the House Bill.

Senate seems to have done a good job. Amazingly, both sides of the Senate worked together on this.

 

I was a fan of the bill from the beginning. Perhaps the best addition to the bill was Sen Franken's changes to how the ratings agencies do business. No more shopping for the best rating!

 

ummm i gotta read up in this....what about those payday "loan sharks"...er... lenders? Hoping something was done about them...

Glass-Steagall was not restored either...

 

You know, it is fine that you think that high interest rates are unconscionable, but the consequence to limiting rates will ultimately mean that less people will qualify for credit cards.

There might be some merit to the idea that poor people with bad credit shouldn't be allowed to get themselves into credit card debt, but I'm not going to be making that decision for people. Personally I think people are better off with high interest rates than they are with no credit availability at all.

 

I don't see that as a bad thing at all. Particularly with the changes to bankruptcy laws a few years back. Credit card companies handed out cards like candy. They are not necessary. College kids with no income don't need them. Poor people don't need them. High interest rates ARE unconscionable. People who can't pay their bills are better off tightening their belts for a month or two than taking an easy cash advance that will take them a decade to pay off at the minimum payment.

 

Don't get me wrong...I think your position is entirely valid, and understanding how irrationality and bias affect everybody, there are probably a fair amount of people who can stand to benefit from not having access to credit.

Personally though, I try to stray from paternalistic approaches. While they may benefit some, they also hurt others. I can think of two occasions where having a credit card has saved my butt, and I can also think of two friends who racked up so much credit card debt that they sacrificed a college education because they couldn't afford it. I believe that the response to improper credit use is education for proper credit use...not paternalism.

 

Why are gay bashing Christians so quiet about Usury?

 

I'm not a gay bashing Christian, but I think your comment is misguided. Usury in the time of the old testament was a lot more evil than it is now. Something tells me that if I don't pay my bills on time, Citibank isn't going to throw me in prison and enslave my daughters as concubines.

 

I actually think this was a big red herring. In my experience, investors would ask questions if one of Moody's or S&P wasn't on the deal; it looked so strange people wouldn't do the deal. And if you take a look at most structured finance deals, they were nearly always rated by the big two, and often by Fitch as well.

Yeah, but the repeal of Glass-Steagall wasn't the problem.

 

IMO it was a decent first step, but it won't solve all of the issues that caused the financial meltdown. It's certainly not as groundbreaking as the HCR law was.

 

Just saw a pretty good breakdown of the bill. This is complicated stuff for people who don't know what is going on. I saw two people who seemed like they knew their stuff -- one from The Economist and one from The Financial Times.

Seems like the anticipated bill out of conference would address many important areas. The most intriguing is that derivatives would be traded in an open market. That will give investors a lot more info and might prevent banks and other companies from taking too large of positions.

 

( i am no financial expert, admittedly)
You seem way too certain of something that seems to be -at least- worthy of being called "debatable"

Ex-Merrill CEO Komansky Regrets Backing Glass-Steagall’s Repeal
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601108&sid=auWJO2Uj5tKw
...
"Glass-Steagall, enacted in response to the Great Depression, sought to curb speculation at depository banks by separating them from institutions involved in capital markets. The global financial crisis prompted debate about whether the law’s repeal helped spawn reckless lending and fueled risk-taking, leading to a $700 billion U.S. bailout of troubled firms.

Events after the law’s repeal may have unfolded differently if U.S. market watchdogs including the Securities and Exchange Commission had more vigilantly enforced rules that remained on the books, Komansky said.

...
"Senators Maria Cantwell, a Washington Democrat, and John McCain, an Arizona Republican, are working on an amendment to split commercial and investment banking, Cantwell’s office said earlier this month. The amendment is based on a proposal Cantwell and McCain offered in December to reinstate Glass- Steagall.

President Barack Obama’s proposals to overhaul financial regulation also include the Volcker rule, named for former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker, which would require banks to exit the business of trading for their own account.

“I do think there’s a need for some type of regulation in that area,” such as placing controls on how much risk a deposit-taking institution can take, Komansky said. “Whether or not the Volcker rules per se are the answer, I think the spirit of the Volcker rules probably is appropriate.” "

 

The reason Glass-Steagall was originally drafted is completely antiquated now, and the banks that failed and got badly burned were either iBanks or not banks at all, and wouldn't have been affected anyway.

 

I meant mainstream Christians in general. However, its good to know Biblical proscriptions can be discarded as situational. Ill be using that stance on many other issues. Somehow I think they will consider situational interpretations to only apply in situations of their choosing.

 

I haven't read the bill yet but I've heard it does too much, it doesn't go far enough, it doesn't change anything, it changes everything it'll cause a rise in taxes, and it won't raise taxes.

 

I'm comfortable with that. With the lack of quality financial education in high and junior high schools they are horribly misused by young folks, severely limiting their future financial success. If we gave them a decent chance to read the fine print and know a trap when they saw one, I'd have less sympathy. But we don't.

I guess we will disagree on that. There are few, if any, things I know of that are
a) so important as to be worth going into long-term debt for, and
b) can't be covered financially using a method other than a high-interest credit card.

 

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26315908/ns/msnbc_tv-rachel_maddow_show#37285725

Why no Volcker Rule.....explained in this vid....and why stronger language on this was needed....

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3036677/ns/msnbc_tv-countdown_with_keith_olbermann#37285347


The lack of a Volcker rule, is it a problem?

 

really? Try some imagination. Even most financial advisors (the kinds of people who know how interest rates affect you) will advise you to keep a credit card on hand and to try to get a high credit limit, but only use it in case of emergencies.