Big banks pushing for another extension, yet another break,

[RiverLover]

while they continue to risk massive sums in private equity~

Goldman Needs Volcker Delay to Avoid Private-Equity Losses
12/5/2014

Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS) has $7 billion invested in private equity that it might have to sell at a loss. For Morgan Stanley (MS), it’s $2.5 billion.

The big sums explain why Wall Street has been lobbying regulators to delay a July deadline for complying with the Volcker Rule, which restricts banks from investing in private equity as part of a ban on making market bets with their own capital. Banks argue that if they dump holdings quickly, they will have to accept discount prices. Analysts and lawyers for the financial industry say Wall Street’s concerns have begun to make headway with the Federal Reserve, which plans to decide on an extension soon.

“There’s considerable pressure the Fed is feeling in that they don’t want institutions to have a bloodbath trying to divest funds,” said Kevin Petrasic, a partner in the global banking practice of Paul Hastings LLP in Washington. “The Fed has been indicating flexibility.”

The Volcker deadline underscores the tension regulators face between enforcing rules meant to curb risk-taking and responding to banks’ complaints that many Dodd-Frank Act reforms aren’t workable. The Fed is deciding what to do after lawmakers lambasted it at congressional hearings last month for weak oversight of Wall Street.

...Democratic lawmakers who helped write Dodd-Frank said they’re tired of banks dragging their feet on the Volcker Rule. Wall Street says it’s too complicated, even though “they made it that way,” said Senator Sherrod Brown of Ohio. “The banks have slowed it” and don’t need more time, he said.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-12-05/goldman-may-dodge-private-equity-losses-with-volcker-reprieve.html

If they hadn't spent millions of dollars to buy our lawmakers repeal of Glass-Steagall, they wouldn't even be in this particular bind...

And The Fed will probably let them off the hook, give them a few more years, and then a few more...with plenty of time to end up needing US to bail them out again.

[GeorgeGist]

1. The rule's provisions were scheduled to be implemented as a part of Dodd-Frank on July 21, 2012,

[5] with preceding ramifications,[6] but were delayed. On December 10, 2013, the necessary agencies approved regulations implementing the rule, which were scheduled to go into effect April 1, 2014.[7] On January 14, 2014, after a lawsuit by community banks over provisions concerning specialized securities, revised final regulations were adopted.

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

[RiverLover]

2. Yep.

[abelenkpe]

3. Kick nt

[Avalux]

4. It's all just an exercise in pretending for the public.

They'll get their extension, and anything else they want too. Laws do not apply, not really, not for them.

[RiverLover]

5. Makes the term "Robber Baron" very fitting!!

Liz Warren~

"You sit in Treasury and you try to enforce these laws, and I've read all of your testimony and you tell me how vigorously you want to enforce these laws, but you have no opinion on when it is that a bank should be shut down for money laundering?" Warren finally asked. "Not even an opinion?"

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/03/07/elizabeth-warren-hsbc-money-laundering_n_2830166.html