The financial reform bill is clearing the Senate and should be approved later today, says the New York Times.
Passage of the bill would herald the end of more than a generation in which the prevailing posture of Washington toward the financial industry was largely one of hands-off admiration, evidenced by steady deregulation. While the measure does not fully restore the toughest restrictions imposed after the Great Depression, it is a clear turning point, highlighting a new distrust of Wall Street, fear of the increasing complexity of technology-driven markets, and renewed reliance on government to protect the little guy.
The bill would create a council of high-level federal officials, led by the Treasury secretary, to try to detect, and perhaps prevent, systemic dangers to the financial system, and it would give the government new authority to seize and shut down failing financial institutions, by liquidating assets and forcing shareholders and creditors to take losses.
Of course, many on the left say the bill is way too weak. Much more can be found all over the internet.
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Should I dump all my stocks? heh
“The bill would create a council of high-level federal officials, led by the Treasury secretary, to try to detect, and perhaps prevent, systemic dangers to the financial system,”
Wont work if the members of that group ignore warnings. Watch PBS’s Frontline “The Warning” and you’ll understand how Alan Greenspan flat out ignored the warnings and refused to do anything about the unregulated derivatives market. He did this based this on political beliefs that government should never regulate anything. So while his conservative leanings helped in the 90s, it nearly destroyed us 10 years later.
We will have a kinder and gentler financial collapse next time around. Kinder to the rich, that is. Anything Dodd has touched must automatically be suspect
Of course the bill is too weak…it’s the end result of catering to the whims of conservatives who will no doubt add this to the litany of things that they point to as proof of Obama’s failure when it doesn’t make things magically better they day after it goes into effect.
@1: If this is all the financial reform we’re going to get, you should double down.
look at you today, barack obama. getting shit done even though everyone says you don’t.
the senate still need abolishing.