Supporters of Sen. Chris Dodd’s financial regulation bill say it will end financial bailouts. In fact, the Senate — anxious to reassure Americans on that fact — even added an amendment last week with a stated purpose “[t]o prohibit taxpayers from ever having to bail out the financial sector.” But someone forgot to tell the folks across town at Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae. Freddie last week announced it had lost $8 billion in the first quarter of the year, and would be asking for another $10.6 in taxpayer help. …
President Obama went to Wall Street today to make the case for financial regulation. Putting aside the bank-bashing rhetoric employed just a few months ago (“…if these folks want a fight, it’s a fight I’m willing to have“), this time he was measured in his rhetoric, making the case for the reform bill now pending in the Senate. And he made good points. “We need a system to shut [failing].. firms down with the least amount of collateral damage to innocent people and businesses…The goal is to make certain that …
One of many bureaucratic boondoggles in the Senate financial “reform” legislation is a “Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection Protection.” Just how exactly would the proposed new bureaucracy protect consumers? The same way bureaucrats do everything: with more paperwork and fewer choices. A few years ago, a TV commercial showed a man in a trench coat slinking through a grocery story, slipping items into his pockets. He glided past the registers without stopping to pay, only to be stopped by a friendly security guard. “Sir, you forgot your receipt.” This sort …
President Obama met today with members of Congress to jawbone them on the pending financial reform bill. A key part of his message: “we must end taxpayer bailouts.” Few statements are less controversial than that. Nobody wants to see more bailouts. But wait a second. Doesn’t the very legislation he’s plumping for — and which will soon be voted on in the Senate — itself provides for bailouts. When asked that by a reporter just before the meeting, the President hedged, saying only “…I am absolutely confident that the bill …
Senator Chris Dodd’s monstrous 1336-page financial reform draft includes a whopping 217 pages devoted to “improving” over-the-counter derivatives markets. Dodd the derivatives section may be replaced by a yet-to-be-released bipartisan compromise from Senators Jack Reed and Judd Gregg. But the Dodd draft suggests that legislators are focused on bureaucratic imperatives rather than improving markets. The biggest blind spot in Dodd’s draft is the assumption that only command and control regulation can improve markets. In fact, beginning even before the financial crisis, an international cooperative effort of derivatives market participants led …
There’s more going on in Washington this week than health care reform. Giving up on efforts to get a bipartisan deal on financial regulation, Senate Financial Services Committee chair Chris Dodd today released his own plan – sans GOP support – for “fixing” the financial system. The goal, according to the plan, is to create a financial system that will not only prevent another financial crisis, but one that “works for and protects” Americans. It’s a fine sentiment, but there’s one problem: the new regulations being proposed will make the …
Is a congressional compromise on financial services regulation in the works? Steven Pearlstein of the Washington Post today reports the answer is “yes,” citing progress in negotiations between Democratic Sen. Chris Dodd of Connecticut and GOP Sen. Bob Corker of Tennessee. Specifically, Pearlstein points to a breakthrough on one of the major sticking points of the debate: whether to create a new agency to enforce consumer protection laws in financial service markets. As described, the compromise proposal may alleviate many of the potential organizational objections to the idea. Nevertheless, the …
Whom It Really Targets The Hit List: H.R. 1586 retroactively taxes AIG employees who are due deferred compensation and would tax that compensation at a 90% rate. A Much Broader Sweep: Going forward, the bill also imposes a 90% federal tax rate on anyone employed by a company receiving $5 billion in TARP funds who has a family income over $250,000, individual income over $125,000 (if single or married but filing separately), or performance pay larger than adjusted gross income. What Defines a Bonus? Under H.R. 1586, a “bonus” is …
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1GoK0539Gl4[/youtube]As Congress builds its target list with any wage earner who makes over $250,000 and is even slightly tied to a company recieving TARP funds, let’s not forget who modified the $800 billion stimulus bill to formally recognize these bonuses in the first place. And this from Larry Kudlow: What it really shows is how the government has completely bungled the AIG takeover. Blame the Bush administration and the Obama administration. It also shows, once again, why the government shouldn’t run anything, because it cannot run anything. AIG should have …
As President Obama and Congress are starting to learn, it isn’t easy running American businesses from Washington. This week AIG threw bonuses in the faces of their new CEO’s on Capitol Hill, after Senator Chris Dodd (D-CT) specifically legislated that they could do just that. Senator Dodd is apparently wishing he hadn’t made that decision now. Now we learn that the auto companies that American taxpayers are bailing out an alarming rate are being forced into more bad decisions by lawmakers. Their new “bosses” on Capitol Hill are forcing them …
