Gretchen Morgenson: Financial Reform Bill FAILS To End 'Too Big To Fail'

New York Times:

After President Obama signs it into law, the nation's financial industry will still be dominated by a handful of institutions that are too large, too interconnected and too politically powerful to be allowed to go bankrupt if they make unwise decisions or make huge wrong-way bets.

Read the whole story: New York Times

Comments

[TheCrimeDog]

06:48 PM on 07/12/2010

Does anyone know "why" Obama has walked away from the foreclosure crisis altogether ?

[papau]

12:27 PM on 07/05/2010

Gretchen Morgenson needs to retake econ 101 and Reading 101. While she picked up on some parts of the bill, what she analyzed was as if she had no historical knowledge or economic knowledge. The one comment she was spot on was the fact that G-S applied to domestic operations only. She missed that it did not apply to investment banks who led the way on derivatives and liar loans - the cause of the banking crisis - so restoring G-S would do little that would help with the problem. Seems the NYT has joined the tabloids with making every story fit a theme decided in the GOP controlled boardroom.

[vippy]

08:05 AM on 06/29/2010

This reform bill is a joke like the rest passed so far. It failed to address what brought us down this time. Derivatives not addressed, and there are billions out there (I think they were afraid of litigation) and Glass-Stegall not enacted and the miserable Commodities Futures Modernization Act of 2000, that leaves the oil/gas prices to speculators left in place. The 5 billion dollars spent by the lobbyists bought this reform. And still some claim that it is a egg in the basket for Obama for passing this.

[papau]

12:30 PM on 07/05/2010

CFMA was modified in 2008 to finally take care of the Enron loophole - the GOP had stopped the fix for 8 years. Derivatives are addressed - about 70% of them - with agri and airline fuel derivatives not touched.

It is not a joke and indeed is the biggest re-regulation since the 1933 Acts.

[lvdragonlady]

08:52 PM on 06/28/2010

So be it then, because next time they tank it will be on them not the American people to bail their behinds out. They continue to think that it can not or will not happen again, but it will and next time, it is tough cookies because they will be on their own.

[GenosseJoe]

11:07 PM on 06/28/2010

Last time what tanked was the housing market with Fannie May and Freddie mac.

This bill does nothing with fannie and Freddie.

[Takebackourmoney]

01:39 PM on 06/28/2010

Why don't you report it on your show day after day until it is heard

[jcaunter]

03:33 AM on 06/28/2010

"The bank's unprecedented reach and power have enabled it to turn all of America into a giant pump-and-dump scam, manipulating whole economic sectors for years at a time, moving the dice game as this or that market collapses, and all the time gorging itself on the unseen costs that are breaking families everywhere — high gas prices, rising consumer credit rates, half-eaten pension funds, mass layoffs, future taxes to pay off bailouts. All that money that you're losing, it's going somewhere, and in both a literal and a figurative sense, Goldman Sachs is where it's going: The bank is a huge, highly sophisticated engine for converting the useful, deployed wealth of society into the least useful, most wasteful and insoluble substance on Earth — pure profit for rich individuals."

The entire government from Top to bottom is infested with Goldman Sachs cronies, and Obama is a particularly enthusiastic representative of the breed. How can we have financial reform when GS and its appendages in the congress and the White House are writing the "reform"?

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/12697/64796

[Lorianne]

12:18 AM on 06/28/2010

Gretchen Morgenson: Financial Reform Bill FAILS To End 'Too Big To Fail' ___

Oh that's big headline news. We already knew that.
That's why some people are so against this so-called 'reform' and still hopping mad about TARP and subsequent bailouts.

Another TARP is coming.

[MilesLong]

09:33 PM on 06/27/2010

I have to admit that in terms of Americans getting a bird's eye view of just how the two house system works in general, and the Senate in particular, the election of Barrack Obama has been quite illuminating.

Before January 20th, 2009, most Americans didn't know what a filibuster was even if you baked one for them. Now, both Democratic and Republican voters are more tapped into the legislative process than at any other time in the last 100 years.

Having said that, now everybody understands that the US Senate is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Corporate, Inc. and all its financial partners; like the banks, hell, especially the banks. Was the outcome of this legislation really a surprise to anyone?

Miles "Foregone Conclusion" Long

[Lorianne]

12:22 AM on 06/28/2010

A lot of people (finally) caught on in September/October 2008 during the TARP debacle.

Most everyone still doesn't understand this. Democrats especially are still defending TARP and subsequent bailouts and still defending TBTF.

[worker beenumbed]

08:55 PM on 06/27/2010

The regulators work for usually campaign contributions- usually.Bernanke Failed to use the Homeownership and Equity Protection Act in 2006 when a dire need existed to 1 .require documentation on loans nationwide 2 Require sufficient income to pay the mortgage after the reset of the mortgage intrest rate.These requirements are an important part of the reform law. I cannot understand his inaction. It looks like a secret deal.

[aonemandog]

06:24 PM on 06/27/2010

Dodd, Frank and the others owe their allegiance to the big banks, stockbrokers, etc. They have been bought and paid for. Although every one in a while Barney will do something for regular Americans, he more often sides with the big money. They are all crooks and the only way we can change is to vote them out and replace them with younger, untainted people and get them to pass election reforms (taxpayer financed elections, two term limits, etc.) before they become corrupted.

[tc399]

08:05 PM on 06/27/2010

I think that's backwards. It seems to me more reasonable to elect retired people who will actually have to live on their salary; who have no incentive to steal, and whose term limits are already predetermined by nature. People who want to serve for the good of America....not the good of their own pocketbook...people who have already been around the block and understand what graft is and know they are too old to start practicing it. In short, people who can and will tell lobbyists to sod off. I am in my sixties and I'd have a hard time finding a thousand dollars for a campaign, much less $84 MILLION like Carly Fiona. Who spends $84 MILLION DOLLARS to get elected to a Senate job that past $200k a year? You immediately know something stinks because she isn't going to serve in congress for 400 years. We can do without that sort of nonsense.

[Lorianne]

12:24 AM on 06/28/2010

Greed doesn't have an age limit

[papau]

12:35 PM on 07/05/2010

Dodd, Frank, and others produced a good bill that would have been tougher had Frank's ideas survived the new Democratic Party reps that feared to oppose their corporate friends. Watch C-span next time and note how the old timers - the top row of seats - voted with the Frank changes only to lose the GOP working with the bottom row (newly elected) Democrats .

[aonemandog]

02:00 PM on 07/05/2010

I have worked with these guys for almost 30 years. They know going into a vote who is going to vote which way. A lot of it is for show. Someone like Frank will propose a very tough position knowing that it will get voted down. That way, he looks tough on an issue that he doesn't really support. It happens all the time, sadly. These long-term politicians are shifty beyond belief. They are really more thrilled with the deal than they are with the results. They each have their corporate "sponsors." Frrank's role in the collapse of the housing industry has been purposely under-reported and he has always been a supporter of the banking industry.

[LinkSync]

04:49 PM on 06/27/2010

To expect the Corporate owned and operated Congress to enact real reform is to be either extremely stupid or blindly Pollyannaish or both.

If we as citizens continue to allow re-election of incumbents then the natural result will continue to be what we already have, only more so, corporate control and ownership of the American Government.
Throw the bums out except for “my” bum.

We will never achieve a Democracy, or a Citizen’s Government of, by, and for the People.
There will never be term limits on congress.
The Electoral College will always supersede one person one vote.

The corporations will continue to kill us and poison us and profit from us as they FARM us, with no care for whatever ideology we express in our lives, as long as the money rolls in.
They have no "nationality" save a blind loyalty to profit.

We have become Serfs with refrigerators and cars, helping to consume our own children, in every way.

Americans have surrendered Liberty and Happiness, and now Life too, to Corporate Profits.

This is how craven we are.

We reap what we sow.

[GovernmentBubble]

04:26 PM on 06/27/2010

This wouldn't have stopped the last crisis, much less the next one.

[dfranz]

04:09 PM on 06/27/2010

Between Republicans and DINO's not wanting to do anything to hurt their primary donors and the generally unorganized Senate Dems lacking conviction the American People are once again given a pathetic bill which is no more than wall paper.

I honestly no longer believe that any substantial changes can be made with the current mix of people in DC. However I won't be voting Republican just to change the person. They are a morally bankrupt party and completely devoid of any ideas for Americans. I guess incompetence is preferable to those who would tear America apart.

[MyTake]

03:29 PM on 06/27/2010

There was only one headline that rose above all others after the passage of this perfectly lobbied legislation.

"BANK STOCKS SOAR" on news of this legislation being passed.

And the OB man proffered nothing but enthusiasm over this massive public fraud disguised as legislation.

[m1penner]

03:32 PM on 06/27/2010

I think that is the perfect punctuation on the points I made in an earlier post.

[Chucktheman]

03:17 PM on 06/27/2010

Would it not have been easier and more fair to all concerned to split the few largest banks into separate entities and eliminate the to big to fail by making the banks not to big.? I dont see where any one bank needs to control more thatn 100 billion dollars.

[Lorianne]

12:27 AM on 06/28/2010

The best way to end TBTF is to stop bailouts.
Without bailouts they won't take as many risks and risk too much money in new ponzi schemes.