Taibbi: the evisceration of Dodd-Frank

[eridani]

http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/279-82/11380-focus-how-wall-street-killed-financial-reform

Two years later, Dodd-Frank is groaning on its deathbed. The giant reform bill turned out to be like the fish reeled in by Hemingway's Old Man – no sooner caught than set upon by sharks that strip it to nothing long before it ever reaches the shore. In a furious below-the-radar effort at gutting the law – roundly despised by Washington's Wall Street paymasters – a troop of water-carrying Eric Cantor Republicans are speeding nine separate bills through the House, all designed to roll back the few genuinely toothy portions left in Dodd-Frank. With the Quislingian covert assistance of Democrats, both in Congress and in the White House, those bills could pass through the House and the Senate with little or no debate, with simple floor votes – by a process usually reserved for things like the renaming of post offices or a nonbinding resolution celebrating Amelia Earhart's birthday.

The fate of Dodd-Frank over the past two years is an object lesson in the government's inability to institute even the simplest and most obvious reforms, especially if those reforms happen to clash with powerful financial interests. From the moment it was signed into law, lobbyists and lawyers have fought regulators over every line in the rulemaking process. Congressmen and presidents may be able to get a law passed once in a while – but they can no longer make sure it stays passed. You win the modern financial-regulation game by filing the most motions, attending the most hearings, giving the most money to the most politicians and, above all, by keeping at it, day after day, year after fiscal year, until stealing is legal again. "It's like a scorched-earth policy," says Michael Greenberger, a former regulator who was heavily involved with the drafting of Dodd-Frank. "It requires constant combat. And it never, ever ends."

That the banks have just about succeeded in strangling Dodd-Frank is probably not news to most Americans – it's how they succeeded that's the scary part. The banks followed a five-point strategy that offers a dependable blueprint for defeating any regulation – and for guaranteeing that when it comes to the economy, might will always equal right.

[snot]

1. K&R'd

[banned from Kos]

2. stopped reading after Taibbi's third lie.

He should be on Fox News.

His attacks on Senators Schumer and Warner pisses me off.

[eridani]

3. Both are well known for caving to financial interests n/t

[Agony]

4. An unregulated derivatives market essentially gives Wall Street a way to place hidden taxes on every

thing"
"That's how the swaps market works. It operates completely in the dark. If you're some Podunk town in Texas or Alabama and you need swaps financing, you've got to ask Goldman Sachs or Morgan Stanley what it costs. There's no exchange where you can compare prices. And modern investment bankers are ethically a notch below your average drug dealer. They will extract from their customer – a town, an airline, a chain of retail stores – whatever they think he'll pay. And that extra cost will be passed on to you by the overcharged customer, in the form of higher taxes, bigger home-heating bills, higher sewer rates or pricier airline tickets. Wall Street will be taking a bite out of you every time you write a check."

I am sick of being "represented" by fiscally corrupt politicians regardless of them being socially liberal. The former essentially nullifies the latter at this stage in a rotting democracy.