Wall Street's $26m lobbyists gear up to fight Obama

[samplegirl]

Banks are mobilising a smooth-running lobbying machine in Washington to ­battle Barack Obama's plans to limit the size and scope of Wall Street institutions, as financial services firms gear up to stop a shake-up that could slice away large chunks of their operations.

Their influence on Capitol Hill is broad – the top eight US banks spent $26m (£16m) on lobbying efforts last year, an increase of 6% on 2008 despite their financial woes, according to Congressional records. And in the first 10 months of 2009, the financial industry donated $78.2m to federal candidates and party committees – more than any other business sector – according to political research institute the Centre for Responsive Politics.

"The power of the financial services sector in this city has not dissipated at all … they've just done things in a quieter way," said Ethan Siegel, an analyst at financial consultancy The Washington Exchange, who monitors Congress for big investors. "They haven't pulled back on their lobbying just because they've become piñata in the press."

Wall Street lobbyists argue that scaling back the size of banks misdiagnoses the cause of the financial crisis, jeopardises jobs, damages America's competitiveness and could inhibit growth.

The Financial Services Forum, which represents 18 top banks including Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan and Citigroup, says the problem of institutions becoming "too big to fail" ought to be tackled through more effective supervision, and by creating an authority able to wind down failing firms, rather than by forcing them to shrink. Spokeswoman Erica Hurtt said: "This was not a trading crisis and these proposals miss the mark. They won't get to the causes of the crisis."

Banks' persuasiveness has already had significant impact on the Obama administration. Plans for the creation of a consumer financial protection agency are meeting staunch Senate opposition and may be watered down to get the 60-40 support needed to override objections.

One widely used strategy by the financial industry has been to deploy representatives of smaller high-street banks to make the case to lawmakers. Organisations such as the Independent Community Bankers of America tend to get a sympathetic hearing because they can point to members in towns and cities in almost every Congressional district, rather than purely in lower Manhattan. Banks will not succeed in defeating restrictions entirely: "Everybody hates banks now and my intuition is that bank lobbyists overplayed their hand last year. It would have been better for them to work out some compromises rather than trying to destroy reform bills entirely."




He added that banks will not succeed in defeating restrictions entirely: "Everybody hates banks now and my intuition is that bank lobbyists overplayed their hand last year. It would have been better for them to work out some compromises rather than trying to destroy reform bills entirely.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2010/jan/24/wall-street-lobbyists-banks-obama

[C_Lawyer09]

1. Article from a Libertarian blog, food for thought

http://www.lewrockwell.com/blog/lewrw/archives/48302.html#more-48302

"A person familiar with the operations of one big wall street bank, said it expects that new regulation will affect less than 1% of its overall business"

Seems like, more and more, and kind of effectual legislation can only get in front of a problem for a few months at best, until a way is found to sidestep, gut, or push through the regulations. McCain Feingold was a good example, thousands of hours of research and work, nullified within a few months. To me, of limited faith, this legislation is meant as window dressing, and/or an appeasement to the masses. After having read, "Pigs at the Trough" by Arianna Huffington, my faith in governments ability to stand up to the fat cats in the name of individual protection, has faltered substantially. As always, anybody is welcome to "talk me down" as Maddow likes to say, and per the status quo, sarcasm and attacks on my logic/intelligence, or lack thereof are always welcome!

[Jackpine Radical]

2. Obama seems to be of the belief that the solution to any problem

is to spew rhetoric at it.

If the public is pissed off at Wall Street, Obama is only too happy to stand on the sidewalk with them and yell ineffectual invective that echoes down the canyon of skyscrapers, unheard and and unnoticed rulers in their towers, while pushing meaningless regulatory legislation with fancy titles.

Just like he talks a mighty good game of health care reform while egging the Senate on to craft legislation that gives the health insurance industry everything they want, sending their stocks spiralling through the ceiling.