Robert Reich: Why the Finance Bill Won't Save Us

[flpoljunkie]

http://robertreich.org/post/628324698/obamas-regulatory-brain

[ej510]

1. This bill does little or nothing to prevent another economic disaster.

[ProSense]

2. Reich is wrong

The banks aren't too big to fail because they're banks.

The Senate bill does break up the large financial institutions.

On edit: Krugman also pointed out that the problem is not the size of a traditional bank.

[avaistheone1]

4. Your link doesn't work

[ProSense]

6. Fixed. Thanks. n/t

[avaistheone1]

7. .

[flpoljunkie]

9. Yes, but regulators can change with administrations. Krugman is not always right.

[flpoljunkie]

10. Even if Lincoln's derivatives language doesn't get stripped, it has loopholes aplenty

[amborin]

3. ny times: Wall Street is Relieved!

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/24/business/24reform.html?ref=todayspaper&pagewanted=all

[ProSense]

5. Right

From the article:

A Senate proposal calls for Wall Street firms to wall off their derivatives businesses and place them in subsidiaries requiring substantially more capital. That would be a major blow — but this provision faces opposition from the both the financial industry and federal banking regulators, and is likely to be shelved or watered down before final passage.

You damn right it would be. This needs to remain in the bill.

[avaistheone1]

8. US Senate rubber-stamps the dictatorship of the big banks

...

The Obama administration has attempted to curtail the more restrictive measures in both the House and Senate versions of the bill, clearly adopting the most pro-Wall Street position in the ongoing negotiations in Washington.

No sooner was the Senate vote conducted, than a media barrage was unleashed, hailing the legislation as an epic achievement. The language used by the television networks, news services and major daily newspapers was so uniform that it suggests prearrangement.

The legislation was “a sweeping Wall Street reform bill” (Reuters), “the most sweeping overhaul of financial regulations since the Great Depression” (ABC), “the most sweeping changes in government regulation of the nation’s financial institutions since the Great Depression” (McClatchy), “the most sweeping rewrite of financial rules since the Great Depression” (Los Angeles Times), “the most extensive overhaul of financial-sector regulation since the 1930s” (Wall Street Journal), “the most sweeping regulatory overhaul since the aftermath of the Great Depression” (New York Times) and “the most profound remaking of financial regulations since the Great Depression” (Washington Post).

None of these corporate news outlets have bothered to explain why Wall Street reacted to the passage of this supposed landmark legislation with comparative indifference.

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2010/may2010/bank-m22.shtml