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Dodd's Bill on Financial Regulation Doesn't Go Far Enough
Mar 17, 2010
It's been more than a year and a half since Lehman Brothers went bust
and the entire edifice of Wall Street came tumbling down, only to be
put back together by trillions of taxpayer dollars.
And still, to this day, Congress hasn't passed any financial reform.
On Monday, Chris Dodd finally unveiled the Democrats' Senate bill.
Like the House bill, it at least does something to address the problems
that brought this terrible recession upon us, like creating a Consumer
Protection Financial Bureau to increase regulation.
But it's not nearly enough.
That bureau, in the Senate version, doesn't have sufficient
independent power, for one thing.
Plus, neither the House bill nor the Senate bill breaks up the big
banks that are "too big to fail."
Neither the House bill nor the Senate bill would make sure that all
the derivatives and all the swaps and all the other arcane instruments
the banks have been playing with would now be regulated.
Neither the House bill nor the Senate bill would reinstate
Glass-Steagall, the New Deal law that built a wall between commercial
banking and investment banking.
And neither the House bill nor the Senate bill would substantially
improve on the way the Federal Reserve operates, much less bring it
under democratic control.
Dodd's bill does have some advantages over the House bill. It
"restricts banks from proprietary trading and investing in or owning
hedge funds and private equity funds," the New York Times notes, whereas
the House bill does none of that.
And the Senate bill would at least have the President appoint the
head of the New York Fed, instead of letting the bankers on the board of
directors of the New York Fed do it.
But given the colossal damage the big banks have wreaked, and the
systemic flaws this scandal has exposed, Congress is not responding with
the requisite vigor.
It's amazing that the big banks have skated free for so long, and it
looks like they'll be able to keep on gliding, even after all their
destructiveness.
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Matt Rothschild
Matt Rothschild is the executive director of the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign. Prior to joining the Democracy Campaign at the start of 2015, Matt worked at The Progressive Magazine for 32 years. For most of those, he was the editor and publisher of The Progressive.
It's been more than a year and a half since Lehman Brothers went bust
and the entire edifice of Wall Street came tumbling down, only to be
put back together by trillions of taxpayer dollars.
And still, to this day, Congress hasn't passed any financial reform.
On Monday, Chris Dodd finally unveiled the Democrats' Senate bill.
Like the House bill, it at least does something to address the problems
that brought this terrible recession upon us, like creating a Consumer
Protection Financial Bureau to increase regulation.
But it's not nearly enough.
That bureau, in the Senate version, doesn't have sufficient
independent power, for one thing.
Plus, neither the House bill nor the Senate bill breaks up the big
banks that are "too big to fail."
Neither the House bill nor the Senate bill would make sure that all
the derivatives and all the swaps and all the other arcane instruments
the banks have been playing with would now be regulated.
Neither the House bill nor the Senate bill would reinstate
Glass-Steagall, the New Deal law that built a wall between commercial
banking and investment banking.
And neither the House bill nor the Senate bill would substantially
improve on the way the Federal Reserve operates, much less bring it
under democratic control.
Dodd's bill does have some advantages over the House bill. It
"restricts banks from proprietary trading and investing in or owning
hedge funds and private equity funds," the New York Times notes, whereas
the House bill does none of that.
And the Senate bill would at least have the President appoint the
head of the New York Fed, instead of letting the bankers on the board of
directors of the New York Fed do it.
But given the colossal damage the big banks have wreaked, and the
systemic flaws this scandal has exposed, Congress is not responding with
the requisite vigor.
It's amazing that the big banks have skated free for so long, and it
looks like they'll be able to keep on gliding, even after all their
destructiveness.
Matt Rothschild
Matt Rothschild is the executive director of the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign. Prior to joining the Democracy Campaign at the start of 2015, Matt worked at The Progressive Magazine for 32 years. For most of those, he was the editor and publisher of The Progressive.
It's been more than a year and a half since Lehman Brothers went bust
and the entire edifice of Wall Street came tumbling down, only to be
put back together by trillions of taxpayer dollars.
And still, to this day, Congress hasn't passed any financial reform.
On Monday, Chris Dodd finally unveiled the Democrats' Senate bill.
Like the House bill, it at least does something to address the problems
that brought this terrible recession upon us, like creating a Consumer
Protection Financial Bureau to increase regulation.
But it's not nearly enough.
That bureau, in the Senate version, doesn't have sufficient
independent power, for one thing.
Plus, neither the House bill nor the Senate bill breaks up the big
banks that are "too big to fail."
Neither the House bill nor the Senate bill would make sure that all
the derivatives and all the swaps and all the other arcane instruments
the banks have been playing with would now be regulated.
Neither the House bill nor the Senate bill would reinstate
Glass-Steagall, the New Deal law that built a wall between commercial
banking and investment banking.
And neither the House bill nor the Senate bill would substantially
improve on the way the Federal Reserve operates, much less bring it
under democratic control.
Dodd's bill does have some advantages over the House bill. It
"restricts banks from proprietary trading and investing in or owning
hedge funds and private equity funds," the New York Times notes, whereas
the House bill does none of that.
And the Senate bill would at least have the President appoint the
head of the New York Fed, instead of letting the bankers on the board of
directors of the New York Fed do it.
But given the colossal damage the big banks have wreaked, and the
systemic flaws this scandal has exposed, Congress is not responding with
the requisite vigor.
It's amazing that the big banks have skated free for so long, and it
looks like they'll be able to keep on gliding, even after all their
destructiveness.
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