The Good: The president had strong language for backing real derivative reforms.
The Bad: Vague language about the "Volcker rule" will not stop Too Big To Fail; but a plan like this (or even one like this) for breaking up the current mega-banks and limiting their liabilities will.
The Missing: NONE of this matters while our cops still work for the crooks.
To wit:
Our main form of protection against these kinds of financial criminals, the SEC, remains woefully underfunded. The revolving door between government regulators and the high-paying banks they supposedly regulate remains as fluid as ever. And does it get any scarier than White House Counsel jumping from President Obama's side one day to Lloyd Blankfein's the next? Actually, I guess it does when institutions that should fear the government instead now just declare all-out war.
Meanwhile, the complicit ratings agencies remain a government-sponsored cartel paid by the banks for their favorable grades.
But what is the final backstop that is supposed to protect us next time around under this new plan? Well, Secretary Timothy Geithner explained today on Morning Joe that they would be able to stop the next bailout if only they had the authority to do so. Then finally, they could do things like wipe out equity holders, replace management... you know, kind of like the same steps that they were somehow magically able to do with GM.
But we all know the truth -- no one will do that to the banks until they are no longer Too Big To Fail. As William Black so eloquently told Congress this week, Mr. Geithner and Chairman Bernanke already had that chance to do this to the big banks last time around and they chickened out.
The only way to keep this from happening again is to break up these big banks now and it is up to us to find people with the guts to do so. Hopefully, one of them will be our current President.
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Richard (RJ) Eskow: The President Has Spoken. Now Let's Help Him Act.
Obama's speech walked a line between vision and reality. At times it seemed an internal dialog between the technocrat who sees the problems and how to fix them, and the pragmatist who wants to reap the rewards from whatever bill gets passed.
1999 Senator William Philip "Phil" Gramm was the point man on the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act into law.
2000 Senator William Philip "Phil" Gramm piloted Commodity Futures Modernization Act into law.
2002 Senator William Philip "Phil" Gramm retired while in office.
Both of those laws set up the financial crisis of 2008, 09, 10. One also led to the out-of-control ENRON swindles as well.
2010 Senator Christopher Dodd is the point man on the Financial Reform Bill.
2010 Senator Christopher Dodd will retire at end of his term.
If Obama was to take the right course of action against Wall Street, he would have asked Dodd to step aside and let the Financial Reform Bill be spearheaded by a Senator that will be around to answer questions on the success or failure of that Bill.
So, find out what powerful organization pulls the strings on the likes of Gramm & Dodd and determine how that organization controls the working relationship between Wall Street, The Treasury and The Reserve and the Administration along with the committee's in the Senate and Congress.
The answer is amazingly simple. And, yes, Obama is sponsored by that same organization interlock.
Another thing that needs to be said. I still wonder how anyone can be such an unthinking idiot to not look at the truth that the deregulating that caused our financial ruin was done by Bush & Cheney who purposely appointed regulators who they knew didn't want regulation. And it was Bush & Cheney who did the big bailouts of those banks. So STOP being such dufuses who believe liars such as Limbaugh, Beck and other Republicans. Just look at the actions of those Republicans like Mitch McConnel meeting with those same bankers to see how they can stop banking & Wall Street reform.
I think the real war we need to wage is against idiots who believe the wrong persons.
If the Democrats' financial reform legislation doesn't get at the heart of the problem, and if the government doesn't file criminal charges against the people at the top who were blatantly engineering the fraud that brought the entire economy to its knees, then they have no one but themselves to blame when the voters kick them out.
The American people have had it, and both parties better wake up and realize they are skating on very thin ice.
BUT ! No one cared as long as they had theirs. The Democrats (OBAMA) are the equivalent of the insurance Wall St took out to cover there derivative packaging. Who did he put in charge at Treasury, the Guy who has the most to lose if this Messy Storm is not contained. He put insiders at every key door to transparency. Hey people don't want to know any ways, they just want.
These Bankers had been hiding the mess for years, you think they could not have waited two more months to create a national panic. People think it a coincidence that "Henny Penny" Paulson came out crying like "chicken little" that the sky was falling six weeks before the election! Right after they convinced McCain to tell everyone that the Fundamentals of the economy were sound. If you Don't Get It, I get Glen Beck to Draw you a Picture.
He might as well seek out the advice of lucifer to help him find peace in the middle east. Obama is not interested in real reform to legitimately change the way wall street works, obama is interested in giving off the appearance that he wants real financial reform while covertly working to undermine it. No doubt a rethuglican in office would be worse but lets stop pretending obama is just too nice of a guy or doesnt quite grasp the problemw - this is the same pres who called lloyd blankfein a savvy businessman and has said wall street and main street are essentially one entity, it makes us all look foolish.
If obama genuinely cared, summers would be deported, blankfein would be in jail, goldman would be bankrupted and obama would be quoting FDR's famous "I welcome their hatred" speech. Nope, obama doesn't give a rat's @$$ and you can take that to the too big to fail bank!!
Thank you Dylan Ratigan!
I don't know, but it seems to me that there should be a bunch of bankers in prison. Probably a bunch on the hill and white house belong there with them.
Keep your fine work upl