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Congress Removes Authority to Ban Riskiest Derivatives Trades Because "There Was Concern That A Broad Grant To Ban Abusive Swaps Would Be UNSETTLING”
According to Bloomberg, the original draft of Barney Frank's derivatives legislation:
would
have given the Securities and Exchange Commission and Commodity Futures
Trading Commission joint authority to “prohibit transactions in any
swap” that they determine “would be detrimental to the stability of a
financial market or of participants in a financial market.”
Frank has now stripped that provision because it would be "unsettling":
“There
was concern that a broad grant to ban abusive swaps would be
unsettling,” Frank, chairman of the House Financial Services Committee,
said today as the panel began action on his measure.
Unsettling to the economy?
No.
Unsettling to the 5 banks which comprise the lion's share of the derivatives business.
Frank's revised bill fails to address the many concerns raised by the head of the CFTC (see this and this), and really does nothing to fundamentally reign in the credit derivatives which were largely responsible for crashing the economy.
Change?
Nope, nothing but hot air.
Is fuck off and die printed all over the 1040 forms unsettling? Is hey boss I'm declaring 40 dependants unsettling. Is make a deal face the wheel unsettling?
lol, what pissed you off today my good man ?
I'm pissed off that the Italian's bought safety insurance for their troops in Stan...counterparty via AIG was Taliban...
Marvelous.The frankster really helped to seal our doom with this.
This kind of idiocy/corruption should be front page news throughout the land.But the useful idiots will be focused on the QE based dow 10000.
It must be nice to buy all the laws you ever need.....even if your avarice destroys the whole world.SCUM....they are total SCUM!!!
“There was concern that a broad grant to ban abusive swaps would be unsettling,”
So abusive swaps are good because they are settling? Help me here because I'm confused. Oh, silly me, I'm trying to apply logic where it's not welcome.
Back to my rabbit hole.
I think it's a quote that will appear in history books... unfortunately that book will be written in 2020...
(Hindsight you know...)
The hits just keep on rolling. The next time you steal you'd better ask before you borrow.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yVKKU6Ef5wQ
Why is it that banks can sell CDS to Hedge Funds without any rules that the Hedge Funds own the asset they are trying to protect? I cannot buy a life insurance policy on a stranger (without them knowing) and hope they die.
How are they allowed to get away with all this nonsense?
Well at least we can vote some of them out in 2010, to be replaced by new, equally corrupt "representatives". LOL!
I know somebody at the SEC who is quite proud of the fact that through herculean efforts against SEC management, the highest non-management grade level employees are no longer capped at $150,000/year salary. The last time I saw him he spoke to me in a tone that was at least somewhat derisive about my "lofty" expectations of the SEC. I guess some of my previous comments about the SEC offended his sensibilities after all the hard work to perpetuate the free lunch that is going on at that agency. Basically, the tone and text of his comments to me was that it was naive of me to expect the SEC to execute its charged mission. Until this post, I was so dumbfounded by this that it left me speechless/wordless.
It is becoming painfully obvious to me that there are many folks in this country that have bought into the US's principal export, fraud. Kind of a "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em" mentality. It is why I expect very little from the Federal government. Whatever perversion of HR 1207 gets passed, I don't expect the President to sign it.
Left out one interesting note about the above-mentioned person from the SEC. He has met numerous times with Congressman Frank. Based on my interactions with the SEC gent, I must conclude he considers himself part of the rep from MA's fan club.
Really? If the President doesn't sign the HR 1207 legislation, it would be a loud clear statement that he had been compromised as badly as Barney Frank (who is OBVIOUSLY being blackmailed). Seriously, it would be a vote of no confidence in himself.
They just paid for the next election...what we need is a voter revolt and divestiture of zombie accounts
When is the point reached when we no longer have deomocracy? When is violent opposition against the state a legitimate mechanism of reform? When all other avenues have failed and deomocracy is no longer by the people and for the people.
Really this guy needs to have a national effort to throw him out on his ass. Even the NE liberals must have realized how this guy is screwing him. Schiff will make Dodd squirm. This MFucker needs to have his wings clipped in the name of deomocracy.
There was concern that a broad grant to ban abusive swaps would be unsettling.
>> What I find unsettling is that ABUSIVE swaps are apparently acceptable. The audacity of the corrupt clique in Washington does not cease to unsettle me.
Right on BabaJ... that's the money quote...
“There was concern that a broad grant to ban abusive swaps would be unsettling,” Frank, chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, said today as the panel began action on his measure.
Couldn't ban abusive swaps or abusive banking practices now could we?
definition of insanity.....
doing the same thing and expecting a different result...
costa rica is sounding better and better.
it is not Frank alone, it is all of them, both sides of the aisle.
the crisis was never about the economy per se, but about keeping the cash flow going to the masters of the universe. if you thought that phrase was hyperbole before, i think oyu should have enough evidence that they own all western governments by now.
Western governments only?
I'm uncertain about this. Does anyone believe that the SEC or CFTC would be able to determine which transactions pose systemic risk? It seems more likely that enforcement would be arbitrary at best,and slanted in favor of the big banks at worst.
I'm in favor of some small amount of regulation with regard to some swaps. But the scale of the effort on the derivatives legislation is alarming. It's going to be SARBOX times 1000.
Great post GW.
This is the important stuff that often flies under the radar. It's perhaps a little too esoteric for the Joe Six-pack crowd to understand... but the implications of this 'watered down' version or even the 'original' are potentially enormous. In essence nothing has or will be changed.
I wonder what the pictures that they must have of Barney look like?
http://karmahd.files.wordpress.com/2009/08/barney-frank1.jpg
http://www.fireandreamitchell.com/wp-content/gallery/random/Barney-Frank-Jail-Justice2.gif
I really hate to say this, but;
Roy Cohn = Barney Frank
(for all the youngsters out there, Roy Cohn was the brains behind the evil Senator Joe McCarthy)
All brought to you by the same corrupted bastard who is going to dilute the sham-wow out of the Audit the Fed bill.
Nice.
When things crash he will take credit for partially protecting us -- things would have been worse...
We wise to him.
We can insure $592 Trillion, but we cant even buy our own fu^&ing debt?
How fu^&ing stupid is this shit??
Why the fu^& are people buying EVERYTHING but the SAFEST thing?
Isn't the point of taxation to pay off our debt?
WHY THE F^%$ DON'T WE OWN OUR DEBT AS AMERICANS??
We can buy every other f^&(%^g country in the world, why not ours?
My bowels just "unsettled" into my drawers because of this unbelievably stupid legislation. So they're going to let these idiots continue to trade these highly leveraged, highly volatile instruments.....
Will someone please vote this idiot out already....
Were he only an idiot... he'd probably fuck up the legislation designed to 'assist' the big 5.
He's clearly been compromised.
+1 LOL!!!! I love this site!!!
Are you kidding? I like not knowing if my senior secured debt has been subordinated by CDS garbage floating around. It adds spice to my life. *sarcasm off*
Bought and paid for. How do these guys sleep at night? Oh yeah, on a mattress stuffed with lobbyist cash.
According to Wall Street Journal about 8 months ago: Forty percent of CDS's are "naked."