WHAT NOW, AFTER FINANCIAL "REFORM?"
WILL WE BE SPARED ANOTHER CRASH, WILL WALL STREET BANKSTERS GO TO JAIL?
By Danny Schechter,Author of The Crime Of Our Time
The Sturm und Drang is over. The Bank lobbyists went home to collect their bonuses as the House and Senate agreed on a 2000 page financial "reform" quickly praised by the White House and superficially covered in the press.
The key underreported fact highlighted by Naked Capitalism: "On a flat trading day, financial firms shares rose 2.7% after the deal was announced." Compare that to the market volatility and dire forecasts on Wall Street that followed the call for new financial regulations and you can see who won.
The industry has already figured out how to get around the new law even before it is passed, as expected. What will the Democrats still have to give up for needed votes?
President Obama packed his latest "triumph" in his bags as he winged North to a bragging session at the G20 meeting in Canada where many countries want far tougher measures given the depressed state of the global economy. The Financial Times was underwhelmed as were the nearly one million Americans being cut off from their benefits. Many analysts pointed to loopholes galore in a measure the President labeled the toughest crackdown "since the great depression."
Somehow on cue, Dick Cheney checked back into the hospital, and in Iceland, the scene of the first post-meltdown economic collapse, a comedian from "The Best Party" was elected to head the largest city."
There is something very comic about all this, but that hasn't stopped big media from using the occasion to trumpet the President's assertion of his "command authority," duh, and give him another illusionary achievement to boast about. Financial analyst Yves Smith was dismissive,
"So what does the bill accomplish? It inconveniences banks around the margin while failing to reduce the odds of a recurrence of a major financial crisis.
The only two measures I see as genuine accomplishments, the Audit the Fed provisions, and the creation of a consumer financial product bureau, do not address systemic risks. And the consumer protection authority was substantially watered down."
Now what? Already "Dodd-Frank," as the bill is known is being compared to Glass-Steagall even though it us not reorganizing the banking system or guarding us against giant banks being considered too big to fail, Republicans, including Scott Brown from Massachusetts, the Dems "great white hope in this charade, now threatens to vote against the bill because it assesses fees to pay for costs they incur in the event of their own collapse.
Smith again: "Dodd-Frank effectively anoints the existing banking elite. The bill makes it likely that they will be the future giants of banking as well. Legislators touted changes that would restrict proprietary trading by banks and force them to spin off their swaps desks into separately capitalized operations. But banks get to keep the biggest part of their derivatives business, which is dominated by interest-rate and foreign exchange swaps.
Does this great betrayal sound familiar? Perhaps its just part of a deeper pattern that is not just a commentary on Obama but our whole political culture: Dems dependent on Wall Street for donations, and a media that invariably touts the interests of the status quo.
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
1
1
1
