Congress Agrees on Finanical Reform Bill

The House and the Senate pulled an all nighter to put together a bill labeled “Finance Reform” at the start and ended with the name Dodd-Frank Bill.

So what does Dodd say about the “fix”?

“It’s a great moment. I’m proud to have been here,” said a teary-eyed Sen. Christopher J. Dodd (D-Conn.), who as chairman of the Senate Banking Committee led the effort in the Senate. “No one will know until this is actually in place how it works. But we believe we’ve done something that has been needed for a long time. It took a crisis to bring us to the point where we could actually get this job done.”

Gee that premise has worked so well with the other bills that have come out of Session 111 in Congress this session. Was not the same comment made about the “Healthcare Reform” (aka Health Care Power Take Over Act, Obamacare)?

You should read the article at the Washington Post here.

Once again, this is a Democrat ONLY bill at this point. The votes to get it out of committee have been along party lines at this point. But provisions and exceptions were put into this final version to keep the prospective Republican votes (four) with the bill so the appearance of “biparticanship” can be reported as this head to the Obama’s desk for a July 4 signing into law.

Even as they worked to toughen the Volcker language, lawmakers agreed to an exemption at the behest of Sen. Scott Brown (R-Mass), one of only four Republicans to vote for an earlier version of the financial regulation bill in the Senate last month.

Brown, whose state is a hub of the asset-management industry, wanted the bill to allow banks to invest at least a small amount of capital in hedge funds and private equity investments. The measure would prohibit a banks from investing more than 3 percent of their capital in private equity or hedge funds. It was one of a number of provisions tailored to hold onto key votes as the bill heads toward final passage.

At this date, the final version is not on the http://thomas.loc.gov/ website, as is usual with this Congressional session. Therefore, I can not talk to the fact that this bill will be handing over MORE power to the central bank (aka Federal Reserve), but from the article we get this bit of information:

Despite myriad changes in recent days, Democrats appear poised to deliver a final bill that largely reflects the administration’s original blueprint unveiled almost precisely a year ago.
…
A new consumer protection bureau housed in the Federal Reserve would have independent funding, an independent leader and near-total autonomy to write and enforce rules. The government would have broad new powers to seize and wind down large, failing financial firms and to oversee the $600-trillion derivatives market. In addition, a council of regulators, headed by the Treasury secretary, would monitor the financial landscape for potential systemic risks.

Ok first off the second sentence starts with “The government would…” – um I hate to inform the Washington Post, but the Federal Reserve is NOT part of the Federal Government it is a privately held banking cartel. The first section of the above quote pretty well lays it out for what it is in the end – the same bill which will allow for a whole new ponzi scheme of Wall Street to trade derivatives more rather than less. If you are unfamiliar with what derivatives are – they are nothing – nothing but bets on mortgage defaults on loans and the insurance derivatives (profits/loss) on paying out mortgage loan insurance claims. It is a mouthful, but that is what the clamor is all about in the “derivatives market“. It was the betting on these types of paper that caused the whole mess in 2008 Spring which grew to epic measures of the bank bailout v1.0 (aka TARP) in the Fall of 2008.

This bill needs to die and never become law. It may have some good points and may contain some consumer protection, but the track record of the 111th US Congress has been to hide and expand the power take over of our daily lives and with that track record, I have no faith in a lameduck Senator, Dodd, creating anything that is good for us. Mr. Franks record of missteps only lends more weight to the argument against this bill since the creators have no clue what is in it.

Call your Senators and House Representative and make sure they are voting to kill this bill. It has multiple names and numbers at this point – H.R.4173 Title: Restoring American Financial Stability Act of 2010, H.RES.956, H.RES.964, H.R.3126, H.R.3818, and S.3217.

Do we really need another 1,566 page bill approved by this Congress? HE!! NO!

Share on Facebook