Bush Administration To Unveil Broadest Overhaul Of Wall Street Regulation Since Great Depression

New York Times:

The Bush administration is proposing the broadest overhaul of Wall Street regulation since the Great Depression. But the plan, to be unveiled on Monday, has its genesis in a yearlong effort to limit Washington's role in the market.

And that DNA is unmistakably evident in the fine print.

Although the proposal would impose the first regulation of hedge funds and private equity funds, that oversight would have a light touch, enabling the government to do little beyond collecting information -- except in times of crisis.

The regulatory umbrella created in the 1930s would grow wider, with power concentrated in fewer agencies. But that authority would be limited, doing virtually nothing to regulate the many new financial products whose unwise use has been a culprit in the current financial crisis.

The plan hands vast new authority to the Federal Reserve, essentially formalizing what has been an improvised process over the last three weeks. But some fear that the central bank's role in creating the current mess will undercut its ability to clean it up.

All the checks and balances in the plan reflect the mindset of its architect, Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr., who came to Washington after a long career on Wall Street. He has worried that any effort to substantially tighten regulation could hamper the ability of American markets to compete with foreign rivals, though he has intervened in the mortgage crisis to try to persuade banks to offer concessions to some troubled borrowers.

As the full effect of the credit crisis becomes clearer, the political stakes are growing.

Keep reading.

Read the whole story: New York Times

Comments

[javaman]

I predict it will be more of their peter principle doctrine of success. By promoting failures and giving out freedom medals.

If Katrina and Iraq have taught us one outstanding lesson regarding this ass clowns, they don't know what the fuck they are doing and they don't plan for anything.

And now we are to believe that they actually have a clue?

[leftLibertarian]

The Bush Crime Family knows that is can do whatever it wants and the Democratic Party will not impeach Baby Bush.

[schoolmaster]

Over regulation may stifle economic growth too.

[WIpatriot]

Sure, economic growth created by somke and mirrors.
There has been no growth.

[totalliberal]

Announcing is entirely different from implementing.

[WIpatriot]

That's for sure.

[Troubledwawa]

From the article...

... " eliminate the Office of Thrift Supervision, which now oversees savings institutio­ns."

... "But that authority would be limited. The Fed, which Mr. Paulson proposes to make the “market stability regulator,” would be given explicit authority to limit the risks financial institutions take regarding “certain asset classes” and to “address liquidity and funding issues.”

... "Under the Treasury proposal, while the Fed would have some authority to stop financial institutions from taking on too much risk through the use of exotic financial instruments, it appears that little would be done to limit the flow of such new products."

... "But the Paulson proposal would not give regulators new powers over other investment banks. The proposed prudential regulator would not have authority, since there is no explicit guarantee of its liabilities, and the Fed would be expected to step in to limit risk taking only if the stability of the financial system were threatened­."

----------­----------­----------­----------­----------­----------­------

Sounds to me like the Fed will get a licence to pull more "Bear Stearns" actions for their owners.

Meanwhile, drop the oversight of our savings.

[SCG]

Beware Bushes bearing fix.

[LiarLiarIraqsOnFire]

Yeah, that'll work!

[robbor]

Bush Administration To Unveil Broadest Overhaul Of Wall Street Regulation Since Great Depression

yeah, i bet

[dz555]

The Treasury says that it and other federal regulators still believe a principle it enunciated a year ago, “that market discipline is the most effective tool to limit systemic risk.”

Sure buddy. If they really believed this they would have let the market have its way with Bear Stearns. Paulson is talking out of both sides of his mouth. Hypocrite and liar! Enough said

[forpeace]

*

How about Massive Finance Regulation to STOP funding the Illegal Invasions?!

That's a good start.

*

[CharlesMac]

The Bush Administration disempowered both the SEC and the CFTA. They put people in the SEC who were against regulation on principle. They passed the Enron loophole and other legislation which blinded the CFTA. The SEC and CFTA are fine, they need to be permitted to do their job. Bush promoted poor regulation, not deregulation.

Meanwhile, the Administration empowered the Fed to disrupt economy.

Of all parties, the Fed is the last one to be put in charge of the economy. The Fed was created by the banks and are not accountable to voters, but they use our money to influence our financial and monetary systems .

If there is one issue worth throwing your body on, this is the one. The capitol of this country will become Wall Street and the Fed Building. The opportunities of the average American will go from the current slim, to none.

War and the Constitution become meaningless, if you have to fight to house and feed your family with the dollars you earn.

[mmckinl]

Wrong, the very people who brought us thiss mess now want to put regulation in private bankers hands.

[WIpatriot]

"...author­ity would be limited, doing virtually nothing to regulate the many new financial products..­."

Catch this, mmc? NEW FINANCIAL PRODUCTS. Weapons of Financial Destruction.

[research]

More deregulation!

The same kind of deregulation that got us into this mess!

The Permanent republican fascist majority is still moving forward toward a Hoover depression, so they can further dominate the peasants and avoid prosecution.

Shock Doctrine,

Robber Barons,

Borrow and steal for your cronies republicans:

Conservati­ve=corpora­tist=fasci­st=GOP=Bus­hCo=McCain­=Bankruptc­y.

Bankrupt morally, intellectually, politically.

Bankrupt financially unless you are one of the few chosen cronies.

[mmckinl]

Lincoln and the Banks

Undoubtedly Lincolns' greatest trangression stemmed from his reaction to the need for money to pay for the war in 186l. When he approached the Secretary of the Treasury, Solomon P. Chase, he was offered loans at 24 to 36 per cent interest, which Lincoln refused. He called on his friend, Colonel Dick Taylor, to help him figure out how to finance the war. Dick replied: "Get Congress to pass a Bill authorising the printing of full legal tender Treasury Notes. Pay your soldiers with them and go ahead and win your war."

In 1862 and 1863 he printed 400,000,000 dollars in interest free "Greenbacks". An editorial in the London Times revealed the bankers' attitude:

"If this mischievous financial policy which had its origin in North America shall become a fixture that government would furnish its own money without cost. It would pay off debts and be without debt, it would have all the money necessary to carry on its commerce. It would become prosperous without precedent in the history of the world. That country must be destroyed or it will destroy."
Shortly before he was assassinated, Lincoln made the following statement :

"The Money Power preys upon the nation in times of peace and conspires against it in times of adversity. It is more despotic than monarchy, more insolent than autocracy, more selfish than bureaucrac­y."

[Podewumun]

Great post, mmckinl.

[WIpatriot]

Oh, sure,. I suppose next you'll be telling is that the war between the states wasn't about slavery, too.

/s

[Rule Of Law]

Adams fought the Central Bank and got the war of 1812 for his trouble.

Andrew Jackson paid off the national debt and fought the Central Bank and got two assassination attempts for His trouble.

Kennedy printed Silver Certificates, and had plans to put money making back in the hands of the government, along with getting out of Viet Nam. We know what they did to him.

[dadw5boys]

THIS PUTS THE US. GOVERNMENT IN AN ADVISORY ROLE WITH NO REAL LAWS OR POWER OVER OUR OWN ECONOMY!!!!!!!

WHO IS ON THE FEDERAL RESERVE BOARD??

YOU TRUST THE NAMELESS WITH YOUR NATIONS ECONOMY ??????

THIS IS THE ACTION OF ALL TOTALARIAN GOVERNMENTS AS THEY HEAD DOWN THE ROAD TO THE COMMUNIST FORM OF GOVERNMENT!!!!

[mmckinl]

Exactly ! ..........­.. Hello Disaster Capitaliism !

The very actors who caused this crisis now want to fullly privatize the financial regulatory system.

It is time to fire the privately owned and operated Federal Reserve and installl a Public Central Bank that produces public monies at no interest to us, a right laid out in the Constitution of the United States of America.