Financial Reform Bill To Go To Floor

It appears the impasse on the financial non-reform bill is over, and now that it has been stripped of anything and everything relevant (not much to begin with), the toothless product is about to be voted on by everyone. The "bill" as it now stands will do nothing but accelerate the collapse and the most spectacular banking system blow up in history. We will get you more as we see it.

Comments

[john_connor]

TD, what is this MW headline all about?

3:52p

BREAKING

Shelby: Bank bill talks with Dodd at an impass

[docj]

It probably means somebody just got bought.  My money is on one (or both) of the Maine dingbat sisters, Georgie Cry-Baby (R-OH) and/or Ben Nelson (D-BRK.A)

[HarryWanger]

Whatever happened it certainly spiked the futures!

[HelluvaEngineer]

Yay - our fascist overlords triumph again!

[hedgeless_horseman]

HOLY SHIT!  At 9:00pm EST the President of the United States, let me repeat, THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES, Barack Hussein Obama, has called for action on the financial regulation bill!

FUCKING UNEBELIEVABLE!   Oh, wait a moment...I am drunk...and this is merely a low level political ploy.  Nevermind.  Sorrry for any inconvenience or digestion I may have caused. I blame the cocktails.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704423504575212884028111728.html?mod=WSJ_WSJ_US_PoliticsNCampaign

[akak]

Before responding to the virtually omnipresent poster "Harry Wanger", please be aware of just whom and what you are dealing with in this person:

http://www.minyanville.com/businessmarkets/articles/AAPL-apple-gm-psycho...

His real name is James Kostorhyz, and he is here posing as a troll in dishonesty and in disregard for the fundamental purposes of this forum. He is NOT posting here in good faith, but is purposely antagonizing those with independent, anti-establishment views and opinions for his own selfish and cynical purposes, as part of a study on "the psychology of permabears".

Please do NOT respond to this reprehensible troll, here or anywhere else on ZeroHedge.  He is NOT here in good faith, and should be shunned!

[lsbumblebee]

The only thing more hysterical than Harry Wanger's posts are the ones that actually take him seriously.

Could you guys please just sit back, relax, and let the guy do his Larrry Kudlow schtick?

He is not, I repeat not, doing harm to children, small animals or little old ladies.

[akak]

No, he is merely posing as a troll (not even an HONEST troll!), cluttering this forum and flaming others for his own cynical and dishonest reasons.  I find that contemptible and completely unacceptable.  He is making a mockery of ZH and all of us at the same time.

[NERVEAGENTVX]

Perma-Bear that makes me Perma-Grin!

[lsbumblebee]

That's how it works. Those who vote no because the bill is meaningless will be accused during election time of being against "financial reform".

[earnyermoney]

Exactly.

This bill is a cynical attempt to appease the sheeple prior to the elections this fall. I'm going to enjoy the implosion after it's passage.

[neophyte]

Wonder what further concessions were made to this already "toothless" bill to bring it to the floor.

[Mr Lennon Hendrix]

What happened to the pseudo audit of the fed or whatever that noise was about?  Plastic sword saber rattling by Saunders and co.?

[anony]

It's never about the 'bike'. 

[Tart]

"and now that it has been stripped of anything and everything relevant"

Has it been stripped of the Volkner rule banning trading?

Has it been stripped of the audit the fed amendment?

If not, are those two items relevant to you?

[gunsmoke011]

I agree with this bill being potentially toothless - but anything is better than what we currently have. I just hope they leave the FED Audit, Some form of Glass Steagal and somehting to do with FASB and mark to market accounting. If they can somehow slip those three items into the Bill - this makret is Toast

[HarryWanger]

The market is awaiting some resolution on this. Once we get it, that uncertainty is removed and more retail investors gain confidence to begin investing again. I see it as a positive for the market just for that reason.

[docj]

That you see this as "net positive for the market" is about as surprising as the arrival of high tide.

A supernova would be "net positive for the market" in your eyes. 

[faustian bargain]

Confidence in what? What will have changed significantly due to this bill? Would you please take the flag off your avatar and replace it with a Dallas Cowboys Cheerleader.

[Alienated Serf]

seriously wanger, lose the flag.  the politicians are embarrassing us enough already without you adding to it.

[neophyte]

If the bill maintains the status quo in the most important areas as you and Tart mention then you might as well not have a bill. As someone said in this thread, this is a smoke and mirror game ahead of the elections to appease the public. Even if audit the fed, some form of glass stegall are included, the fine print (exlusions) will really determine whetehr this bill has any meat. Just my 2c.

[cougar_w]

[accelerate the collapse and the most spectacular banking system blow up in history]

Then you mean it's a big improvement over the current situation.

Well why didn't you just say so. I feel so much better now.

Long napalm. Just burn already mo'fo.

[Cyan Lite]

Bloomberg says the $50 billion "tax" on the 50 largest firms is gone.  I guess that means the taxpayers will continue to pay for bailouts?  Obama said he would veto anything without derivatives reform.  No word yet on banning proprietary trading.  Previously, most Republican senators were saying that this would be too difficult to enforce so they shouldn't even try it. 

Moderate Sheeple ("Tea Partiers") will rejoice for this financial reform.  But like most senators, have no clue what a CDO is or proprietary trading.  They just see it as the gov't regulating businesses ("bad, bad, bad!" according to Rush Limbaugh).

[DaveyJones]

As others have said, maybe its best to accellerate the collapse, get it over with and start from scratch. Just don't know what were going to do with all those angry, hungry people. Here's a biscuit. Now sit, beg, roll over. Ouch, he bit me...  

By MATT TAIBBI

Senate Banking Committee Chairman Christopher Dodd’s financial “reform” proposal (Barney Frank’s wasn’t much better) won’t change the nature of anything Wall Street does. Dodd’s needless watering down of a proposal to create a new Consumer Financial Protection Agency has been well-documented, so here is a list of 10 other problems Dodd’s bill will not fix:

via Speculating Banks Still Rule — Ten Ways Dems and Dodd Are Failing on Financial Reform | Economy | AlterNet.

Friend Nomi Prins, who in a former life worked for Goldman, this weekend sent along a link to an article in which she outlines the gaps in the current version of the financial regulatory reform bill. Given that the bill is sometimes being pitched as the answer to some of the problems underlined by the Goldman case, it’s a very sobering read.

My favorite is the halting, incomplete attempt at a rollback of the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, i.e. the pseudo-restoration of the Glass-Steagall Act known as the Volcker rule. Nomi writes:

2) It won’t reduce the economic danger from rampant, overleveraged trading activities. The bill would restrict certain banks from having proprietary trading operations (trading with their own capital) under the “Volcker rule,” but it’s full of problematic exemptions:

a) Banks that claim they trade on behalf of their customers (which they all say they do) escape the rule.

b) Banks that trade for “market-making” purposes (i.e. Goldman Sachs betting against its own clients) are home-free.

c) Banks aren’t required to itemize their trading operations to regulators, so they get to decide what they consider trading for their customers and what they consider proprietary. I wonder how that will work out.

Then of course there’s the treatment of hedge funds, also relevant given the business with John Paulson:

5) It won’t contain the risk to the shadow banking system from hedge funds, private equity firms and venture capital funds. Venture capital and private equity advisers still won’t have to register or report to the SEC, though hedge funds with over $100 million in assets will. There’s also no statutory definition of what actually constitutes a hedge fund, and the bill doesn’t close the tax loophole that allows fund managers to be taxed at the lower capital-gains tax rate of 15 percent, rather than the higher income tax rate of 34 percent. If it sounds crazy to you that the richest people in America are being taxed at the lowest rates, it is: the loophole cost taxpayers about $5 billion this year alone.

There is some good stuff in the bill, but it is riddled with loopholes. Far more important than the actual bill is the effort to actually enforce existing laws. While it is true that the near-complete absence of a regulatory structure to oversee derivatives trading is problematic, there is a lot the government could have done still, if it had wanted to, to prevent catastrophes like AIG and Lehman Brothers. The decision to take a whack at Goldman for this Paulson business is therefore the best news there’s been on this front…

[Commander Cody]

Does anybody actually know what is in it when it is voted on?

[Psquared]

Investment Advisors Act of 1940

Securities Act of 1934

Securities Act of 1933

These laws actually changed the way Wall Street did business after GDI. Notice that the first one was passed 4 years after the crash of 1929 and the last one almost 11 years later. This crap was put together at light speed without any thought of the consequences and before the full ramifications of the GR of 2007 and crash of 2008 were even fully known.

These issues will be revisited as will healthcare, medicare, and social security. Probably before Obama leaves office in 2013. (Assuming the Mayans were wrong.)

[Duuude]

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/29/business/29regulate.html?pagewanted=1&hp

Agree to debate. Like a Marx Bros. movie

[JW n FL]

***** “Shelby said that negotiations with Senate Banking Committee Chairman Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) had reached an impasse, citing specifically concerns over a new consumer financial protections office.??

“This bill still contains a sprawling new consumer protection bureau that will find and force its way into facets of our economy that had nothing to do with the housing crisis,” Shelby said.??

Dodd said in a statement that he could not reach an agreement with Shelby on the consumer issues.??

“I cannot agree to his desire to weaken consumer protections given the enormous abuses we have seen,” Dodd said.” *****

http://thehill.com/homenews/senate/94901-gop-expected-to-let-wall-street-bill-come-to-floor

Sen. Richard Shelby (Ala.)

                                       

Finance, Insurance & Real Estate

$5,299,730

$2,274,869

$3,024,861

       

Lawyers & Lobbyists

$3,014,538

$367,961

$2,646,577

                                       

http://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/industries.php?cycle=Career&cid=N00009920&type=I

Chris Dodd (D-Conn.)

                                       

Finance, Insurance & Real Estate

$14,384,912

$3,176,437

$11,208,475

       

Lawyers & Lobbyists

$4,256,809

$489,027

$3,767,782

                                       

http://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/industries.php?cycle=Career&cid=N00000581&type=I

Now why do I think that somehow that these two whores are just fighting for the fun of it? Why do I believe that the lobby dollars are more important to them both than any real language? Why do I think that the pissing match is just for show?

A consumer based entity? That looks out for the consumer? I don’t see a consumer lobby dollar being spent. But it makes for great sound bites…

***** “Unfortunately, Sen. Shelby believes that continued talks on a number of provisions affecting Main Street will not bring the negotiators any closer to an agreement,” McConnell said in reference to Sen. Richard Shelby (Ala.), the senior Republican on the Banking Committee.” *****

http://thehill.com/homenews/senate/94901-gop-expected-to-let-wall-street-bill-come-to-floor

Main Street benefits from a permanently open 0% Fed window? That only lends to Wall Street?

I didn’t see any lobby dollars coming from Main Street or from a Consumer Based Concern.

I do see $30 MILLION DOLLARS in BRIBE monies, Oops… I mean in Lobby monies coming from banking though…. But those monies where earned by the Banks… it is not like those monies where Tax Dollars and that those Tax Dollars are used to Bribe / Lobby our public officials… How could they accept Bribes or Lobby dollars from Banks that where Tax dollars? And then used to Bribe / Lobby the public officials to NOT benefit the public but the banks? That is just crazy talk, that’s just some conspiracy theory… I am obviously a whack job, nut, fruit cake for saying such things…

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2009/08/bank-lobbyists/

**** "In the first three months of 2009, the financial sector spent $104.7 million to lobby Congress and the administration, down 8% from the same period last year" ****

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124640640747376775.html

So that I am clear... 2008 was a vintage year for Banks? they made soooooooooooooooooooooo much money on 2008 that in the first 3 months of 2009... they could drop $104.7 MILLION DOLLARS?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergency_Economic_Stabilization_Act_of_2008

[The Alarmist]

Apparently the debate was allowed to go forward after the Dems threatened to keep the Senate in session all night, which is apparently a credible threat when your bench is essentially a bunch of geezers. So much for the greatest generation and their offspring. Pass the Polident, please. 

[Alienated Serf]

pass the soylent green.

[ED]

the kind of financial deformity you can believe in.

We will get you more as we see it. you got me enough as it is

[Obiwan]

Support the Sanders-Feingold-DeMint-Leahy-McCain-Vitter-Brownback Federal Reserve Transparency Amendment to the Financial Reform Bill

As unusual a coalition as can be crafted in the Senate plans to fight for an amendment to the Wall Street reform bill that would open the Federal Reserve to a serious audit by the Government Accountability Office. Sponsored by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), the language is modeled after an amendment that passed the House, sponsored by Reps. Alan Grayson (D-Fla.) and Ron Paul (R-Texas).

Sanders is joined by four Republicans of varying politics: John McCain (Ariz.), Jim DeMint (S.C.), David Vitter (La.) and Sam Brownback (Kan.). If Democrats in the Senate back the measure, it would have at least 63 votes, but Banking Committee Chairman Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) is opposed and has argued against a broad audit.

The chairman of the Judiciary Committee, Sen. Pat Leahy (D-Vt.), is also a cosponsor, as is Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wisc.). The group is actively gathering cosponsors as the Senate continues to vote to break a GOP filibuster which is preventing debate from beginning.

[colonial]

This will be a mess now...dare we say a "shitty" bill. 

What are the feds going to say when the next financial crisis occurs?  Barney Frank will blame it on Bush and his fellow Republican Members.  The Republicans will blame Obama, Frank and Dodd.  The liberal wing of the Democrat party will blame Wall Street...again.  Republican Senators will remind everyone that they tried to alter this bill. 

They are all whistling past the grave yard as the capital markets have been fundamentally altered, not by legislation and regulation, but by innovation on a global scale.  For the first time in investment history all the talk about globalized markets, and exotic investment instruments is actually true.  A very calm and reason Judd Gregg made this point a few days ago. 

What are all these dinosaurs going to think when every American with a trading account opens an off-shore account.  Can we say flight of capital campers? 

The real trend that's being masked by the credit crisis is that even the smallest hedge funds, active traders and wealthy investors can mimic all but the most advanced trades. 

On the other end of the scale, TBTF is really code for TCFWTU...Too Complicated for Washington to Understand.  The only thing that will force Washington to start learning about financial markets is when no one shows up to buy Treasuries and Agencies...which is probably the next crisis. 

morons...

[gridlock]

Obama balked at it last week, said he will veto

everything without Volcker rule, derivatives regs and consumer agency.

Well, these are in, but not like the authors intended, so I won't await with bated breath.

[Empresario]

Too bad congress doesn't know sh*t about business. Maybe they should go to b-school. But they'd probably be too afraid to take the GMAT.

www.livingondividends.org/best-gmat-books.html

[sun1]

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