2016 Postmortem

pnwmom

(109,018 posts) Thu Jan 7, 2016, 09:26 PM Jan 2016

Hillary's Chief Financial Officer: Gary Gensler, "Scourge of the Big Banks"

Last edited Thu Jan 7, 2016, 10:00 PM - Edit history (1)

Sanders voted against approving Gensler to lead the Commodity Futures Trading Association because of his Wall street roots. But he proved to be a very tough regulator.

http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2016/01/07/sanders-clinton-spat-over-wall-street-spotlights-discord-over-gary-gensler/

Former Rep. Barney Frank (D., Mass.), who co-authored the 2010 Dodd-Frank financial reform law, said it is “outrageous” to criticize Mr. Gensler. Mr. Gensler pushed to toughen Dodd-Frank as it was being drafted, sometimes defying the Obama administration, and pushed “aggressively” to implement it, said Mr. Frank, who also advises the Clinton campaign.

“He is an example of how this notion that anybody who ever served in the industry can’t do a good job regulating is entirely wrong,” Mr. Frank said Wednesday. “He was by far the toughest regulator.”

This story is from April, 2015 -- nine months ago.

http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/04/hillary-wall-street-117092

At a small Washington dinner party in 2013, the topic of discussion was Gary Gensler’s elbows—specifically how very sharp they can be. Present were Brooksley Born, Gensler’s legendary predecessor at the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, and Mary Jo White, the then-new chairwoman of the Securities and Exchange Commission. Gensler, the mild-voiced CFTC chairman, was proving to be not only the scourge of Wall Street but a major irritant to America’s closest allies.

The reason? Gensler was insisting on rules that would allow U.S. regulators to oversee trading by the big Wall Street banks even if the banks operated abroad. He wasn't going to let Goldman Sachs (his former employer) or anyone else escape whipping by shifting a complex derivatives deal from New York to some affiliate in London, or Bonn, or wherever. Gensler was in effect standing alone against the entire financial world—and he just wouldn’t back down. British and European regulators were aghast over Gensler’s efforts to tread on their turf.

“Boy,” said Mary Jo White—no slouch herself at elbowing opponents—“does he have sharp elbows.”
That should be taken as a warning for the future, especially if Hillary Clinton wins the presidency. The reported selection of Gensler this week as chief financial officer of Clinton’s campaign follows several days in which the just-announced Democratic candidate—on the road in Iowa championing “everyday people”—has offered up more progressive rhetoric and turned Wall Street into her campaign bugaboo. “There’s something wrong when hedge fund managers pay lower tax rates than nurses,” Clinton said on the trail, taking a rhetorical shot at some of the same billionaires who have been underwriting her preparations for months.