Wednesday, March 20, 2013

More on Goldman Sachs's Jim Himes, "Bank Stooge"

There are major negative ramifications for Dodd-Frank regulation especially where derivatives are concerned.  Already derivatives are being funded by depositories of the big banks which means that Dodd-Frank could eventually fail to regulate them adequately.  The bill put forward by Jim Himes and Randy Hultgren will make the present situation worse by weakening and/or eliminating sections of Dodd-Frank.

See Yves Smiths' discussion on the three bills that will potentially undermine bank regulation:
When You Weren't Looking, Democratic Bank Stooges Launch Bills to Permit Bailouts, Deregulate Derivatives
By Yves Smith - Naked Capitalism
. . . .
A bit more than a week ago, Jim Himes (an ex Goldman officer) and Randy Hultgren introduced bills that not only aim perpetuate this situation but will make it worse. And do not labor under any delusion as to whether this bill has official support. Himes is national finance chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, and Bernanke made approving noises about the legislation.

The proposed legislation, which predictably is not getting much attention from the mainstream media, will grease the wheels even more for banks. And where is Elizabeth Warren when a real bill is moving forward? (The three bills we will discuss are going before the House Agricultural Committee for markup on Wednesday; a Senate version of the most obviously troubling one, as discussed immediately below, has been introduced).

Americans for Financial Reform has written a series of layperson friendly letters opposing each of these bills. The first is to pretty much eliminate Section 716 of Dodd Frank, which would force banks like Bank of America and JP Morgan to take their derivatives operations out of taxpayer-backstopped subsidiaries and house them in separately-financed operations. This is the germane section discussing the House bill (its Senate evil twin is S. 474):

Read the full article here
See the letter by Americans for Financial Reform here 

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