Glass-Steagall for the 21st Century -- email from Elizabeth Warren

[magical thyme]

And happy to say that my new senator, Angus King, is part of the proposal!

Here is a link to sign on:
http://my.elizabethwarren.com/page/s/21stcenturyglasssteagall?source=20130918em

MT,

We all remember the darkest days of the financial crisis five years ago.

Credit dried up. The stock market cratered. Millions of people lost their jobs. Billions of dollars in retirement savings disappeared.

There were legitimate fears that the dominos of our financial system would never stop falling, and we were heading into another Great Depression.

On many of these fronts, we've made real progress. The Dodd-Frank Act was the strongest financial reform law in three generations. If I had been in the Senate three years ago, I would have voted for it proudly.

Dodd-Frank put in place the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which has made serious strides toward leveling the playing field for families and increasing transparency in the marketplace. Thanks to the CFPB, I don't think there will ever again be so many lousy mortgages to threaten our families and our economy.

But no law is perfect – and our work isn't done.

Most importantly, where are we now on the "Too Big to Fail" problem?" Where are we on making sure the giant financial institutions on Wall Street can't bring down the whole economy with a wild gamble?

After the 2008 crisis, we widely recognized that Too Big to Fail had distorted the marketplace. The largest financial institutions have lower borrowing costs and competitive advantages because of their free, unwritten, government-guaranteed insurance policy.

There was a lot of talk, but look what happened: The four biggest banks are 30% larger today than they were five years ago. Too Big to Fail status is giving the 10 biggest US banks an annual taxpayer subsidy of $83 billion.

So what are we doing about it? More delays. Many say Congress should wait to act further because the agencies still have to issue many of the rules required by Dodd-Frank.

It's true many rules are not yet written, but that's because the agencies have missed more than 60% of Dodd-Frank's deadlines.

When Congress sets deadlines and regulators miss most of them, it's time for Congress to step in. Congress is responsible for oversight – and that's what oversight means.

For that reason, I partnered with Senators John McCain, Maria Cantwell, and Angus King to offer up one potential way to address the Too Big to Fail problem: the 21st Century Glass-Steagall Act. It's time to separate boring commercial banking from risky investment banking once again.

There are many other approaches for ending Too Big to Fail, and there is no single answer for preventing future crisis.

But we should not accept a financial system that allows the biggest banks to emerge from a crisis in record-setting shape while ordinary Americans continue to struggle.

We should not accept a regulatory system that is so besieged by lobbyists for the big banks that it takes years to deliver rules that are too often watered-down and ineffective.

We should never forget the consequences of letting financial behemoths hold our economy hostage. We managed to avoid that grim fate, but our economy still suffered a staggering body-blow.

There were many powerful interests that that have fought against financial reform, and they will fight future reform efforts too.

But David beat Goliath with the passage of Dodd-Frank. David beat Goliath when we fought for and established a strong consumer agency.

I am confident David can also beat Goliath on Too Big to Fail. Five years after the financial crisis, we just have to pick up the slingshot again.

Thank you for being a part of this,

Elizabeth

[Jefferson23]

1. That's an understatement: ....we just have to pick up the slingshot again.

GO FOR IT!


K&R

[Larry Ogg]

2. Partnering up with John McCain is a really bad sign. N/t

[magical thyme]

4. getting over partisanship is the only way to get things done.

I'm staying issues-oriented from here on out. (Real) politicas makes strange bedfellows.

Eg., Maine just passed fabulous food labeling legislation around GMOs and "natural" food that was initially proposed by a local tea partier, but quickly signed onto by both dems and repubs. 90% of our population supports it. And our god-awful tea party governor has promised to sign it in January. His delay is for good cause: CT already passed their own food labeling legislation and he wants to wait and see how Monsanto reacts. He just doesn't want poverty-stricken Maine to be the first state that they sue.

I don't fucking care that a tea-partier proposed it. It's important legislation and here in the organic capital of the country, we need it.

[Scuba]

3. Kick

[pampango]

5. Great email from Warren. Thanks for posting, magical thyme.

"But David beat Goliath with the passage of Dodd-Frank. David beat Goliath when we fought for and established a strong consumer agency.

I am confident David can also beat Goliath on Too Big to Fail. Five years after the financial crisis, we just have to pick up the slingshot again."

[abelenkpe]

6. K&R

[ProSense]

7. Kick! n/t

[magical thyme]

8. kicking for people to sign petition at link!

K&R is great, but signing the petition is what matters people

[ProSense]

10. I think this is keeping people away

On many of these fronts, we've made real progress. The Dodd-Frank Act was the strongest financial reform law in three generations. If I had been in the Senate three years ago, I would have voted for it proudly.

Dodd-Frank put in place the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which has made serious strides toward leveling the playing field for families and increasing transparency in the marketplace. Thanks to the CFPB, I don't think there will ever again be so many lousy mortgages to threaten our families and our economy.

These statements about Dodd-Frank are too positive.

[magical thyme]

11. That statement got me too. But they need to read on...

"Many say Congress should wait to act further because the agencies still have to issue many of the rules required by Dodd-Frank.

It's true many rules are not yet written, but that's because the agencies have missed more than 60% of Dodd-Frank's deadlines.

When Congress sets deadlines and regulators miss most of them, it's time for Congress to step in. Congress is responsible for oversight – and that's what oversight means."

Although she would have been better off leaving Dodd-Frank out of it other than to say it does't go far enough and as a result of its shortcomings the too big to fails are bigger than before.

[ProSense]

12. Why

"Although she would have been better off leaving Dodd-Frank out of it other than to say it does't go far enough and as a result of its shortcomings the too big to fails are bigger than before. "

...do you think she "would have been better off" not stating her actual opinion of the law?

The Dodd-Frank Act was the strongest financial reform law in three generations. If I had been in the Senate three years ago, I would have voted for it proudly.

[magical thyme]

13. because her opinion of Frank-Dodd is irrelevent to her proposed laegislation, other than

addressing what Frank-Dodd fails to address. The proposed legislation aims directly at "too big to fail" and separation of commercial and investment banking because Frank-Dodd doesn't do that.

Extraneous discussion of Frank-Dodd is a distraction from the purpose of her letter and bill. Her letter would have been shorter and more to the point to focus only on what her bill is about.

I worked in marketing communications for 20+ years, writing brochures, presentations, and occasionally direct marketing letters, and ultimately was responsible for all the the print collateral for a 5 billion dollar line of business.

If I were writing that letter, I would have shortened it considerably and gotten directly to the point much sooner. Leaving out the discussion of Frank-Dodd, other than possibly stating that it doesn't address "too big to fail," would have helped to accomplish that.

[ProSense]

15. Maybe she didn't want to ignore the law in making her case.

I mean, Dodd-Frank may not go far enough, but she clearly believes it's "the strongest financial reform law in three generations."

Maybe she didn't want to leave the impression that she doesn't value the law and the positive aspects of it.

[Andy823]

9. K&R

I am glad one of my senators is in on this also, Maria Cantwell. I also don't care who else is working on this with them, McCain, it needs to be done and we need both sides of the isle in order to get it done. The idea that we can't work with someone that is a republican in order to fix things is just asinine. It's the end result that counts.

[Recursion]

14. Meh. None of the banks previously regulated by Glass-Steagall were the ones that blew up

And the repeal of Glass-Steagall was what let B of A step in and buy Merrill, to avoid a much costlier unwinding.



I don't see any particular harm to bringing it back, but I also can't get anybody to point to any harm that retail banks operating proprietary desks have caused.