Showing posts with label financial reform. Show all posts
Showing posts with label financial reform. Show all posts

Friday, January 6, 2012

Great week for America & Dems (bad, for everyone else)!

Happy Friday, all! What a fantastic week for Americans - and a bad week for Republicans, Tea Partyers, and many Libertarians (the ones who just. can't. stand any government interfence and regulating bodies)! Let me take a brief moment to give you two examples - from this week alone - detailing the differences between the Democratic party and Republican party (of which Ron Paul is a devout member). *WARNING: includes facts!

1) Dems, let by Obama, Nancy, Harry and all the others, two years ago, created the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). That means what it says: a body, that protects YOU, the consumer, from getting ripped the *&^% off by financial institutions. Republicans/Tea Partyers/many libertarians voted AGAINST this regulating body ...and since the bureau's been established, those same powers have made sure the President could not put someone in charge of it. Based on their actions, the GOP/others do not want YOU protected from predatory financial corps. Well, mercifcully, Obama decided to do some "fillibusting, baby!" and he put a leader - Richard Cordray - in place to start going about the business of protecting all Americans. This guy is an aggressive defender of consumer rights, having brought AIG to it's knees, with a $1,000,000,000 settlement, when he was prosecuting them for bad business practices, as Attorney General, earlier in his career. WINNING! GOP/tea partyers/many liberatarians be damned!

2) Today's job report (just released): a net of 200,000 jobs were added last month, and the jobless rate fell to 8.5%, it's lowest level since Feb, 2009, which was just a couple of weeks after Obama took office, when began fixing the God-awful mess that 8 years of Bush and the republicans made, with their wholly-unnecessary Iraq war (which caused 5,000 unnecessary deaths to our american heroes, and unnecessary physical and mental wounds for life, to another 100,000 american heroes), and TWO failed tax cuts (which added over $1,000,000,000,000 to the deficit). The unemployment rate has dropped, consistently, for a nice clip now, and we're in a six-month stretch in which the economy generated 100,000 jobs or more in each month. That hasn’t happened since April 2006. April, 2006. For all of 2011, the economy added 1.6 million jobs, better than the 940,000 added in 2010. All of this is better than analysts expected. Why? Because the Dems, let by Obama, Nancy, Harry and all the others lead and legislated purposefully, with the goal of fixing the economy, implementing good ideas like the stimulus package (even FAUX news analsysts begrudingly admit the Stimulus/Recovery Act was successful), and the recent payroll tax cut, among other things (the GOP was against a tax CUT! ANYthing to ensure Obama's not re-elected)! ...policies and proposed legislation that the GOP, Conservatives and tea party (to a person!), voted AGAINST. Do not forget that.

In summary: Democrats good for America. Republican, Conservatives, Tea Party, many Libertarians, and some "Independents" bad for America.

"Enjoy your weekend, America!"

-sj

Wednesday, September 15, 2010

"get ready, criminals: hell is coming to breakfast"


Obama nails it. No ambiguity. Elizabeth Warren has been hired to protect Americans from evil, and put financial institutions, predatory lenders, and other criminal entities in check. This is what real change looks like, baby!

clicking on title of this post will bring you to HuffPo piece, filled with mad information and details on who she is, why she rules, and what the particulars are; including an incredibly-simple breakdown of just how easy it was for the mortgage brokers and financial services industry to hoodwink americans and just how they were responsible for the near-depression we find ourselves still in. Following are some excerpts....sj


"Anyone who knows her knows that she would only take a position that had real meat to it," said one source who had worked closely with Warren in the past. "I mean, seriously, you've seen her in action. Do you really think she's going to be anyone's lapdog? She bites hard."

"Republicans, too, began to endorse her. A former top official in the Reagan administration said a vote for Warren was akin to a vote for capitalism and free markets."

"Later that year, her opposition widened to include much of the House GOP. Republicans on the House Financial Services Committee introduced an amendment to the pending financial reform legislation intended to prevent Warren from ever heading the agency. It was defeated."

Wanna see why she rules? Watch this...

Friday, July 16, 2010

America got better today! Another great achievement for Obama & the Democrats

This new financial reform legislation the Democrats passed yesterday is worth celebrating. It's a victory for those who prioritize fiscal responsibility, a victory for conservatives, progressives, libertarians, all Americans, really! This is what change looks like. This is what those of us who voted for Obama wanted. Like, fix stuff. He's delivered, with another campaign promise fulfilled, straight from the Democratic playbook (and platform). Again, thanks for NOTHING, congressional Republicans (w/ the exception of 2 or 3)! I've compiled a few of the best takes/articles on what the legislation means, what it doesn't mean, some of the people involved, and what's next. - sj

Wall Street Reform Passes
Ryan Grim
Shahien Nasiripour
Huffington Post

Nearly two years after major banks brought the global financial system to the brink of collapse, triggering a steep economic decline and crisis-levels of unemployment, Congress passed its Wall Street reform package, 60-39, with only three Republicans joining every Democrat (but one). The president will sign it into law next week.

The bill became stronger as the nation's focus moved from health care to Wall Street reform and became tougher still as the debate was held in the open on the Senate floor and during televised conference committee negotiations. Bank lobbyists were able to beat back the most serious threats to their business model, but enough significant reforms remain to earn the opposition of the American Bankers Association and other Wall Street titans.

When Democrats last reformed the financial sector in the midst of the Great Depression, they had several advantages that today's party lacks:
(click on title of this piece for more of the informative article)

FinReg Vote Passes, Will Become Law
by David Dayen
Firedoglake

The Senate passed their cloture vote, as expected, on the Dodd-Frank financial regulatory reform bill. The vote was 60-38, with Scott Brown, Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins supporting from the Republican side, and Russ Feingold opposing. Senatus says that the final vote will be taken up this afternoon, but I haven’t confirmed that. (UPDATE: It’s confirmed that passage will happen today, around 2pm ET.)

The bill is a landmark consumer protection and anti-predatory lending bill. It goes fairly far in that direction, though not quite far enough – the auto dealer exemption is a disappointment. But the mortgage reforms are actually pretty solid, and I have confidence that the consumer protection bureau can have an impact on ending a culture where certain predators in the financial services industry make their profits largely based on how well they can trick people.

As for the Wall Street part of the Wall Street reform bill, the public has no sense whatsoever that it will work. More important, most experts don’t either.
(click on title of this piece for more of the informative article)

FinReg vs Wall Street Reform
by Ezra Klein
Washington Post

Matt Yglesias calls it "the underrated FinReg bill," and I take that headline as a personal victory of sorts.

But he's right about the legislation. The desire for a bill that does more has obscured a clear picture of a bill that does a lot. "We’ve tended to focus much more on what’s not in the bill than on what is in the bill," Yglesias says. "What is in the bill is a consumer protection setup that would be considered a major progressive win as a standalone item. What is in the bill is a 'resolution authority' that will let future regulators avoid the bailout-or-crisis dynamic that plagued us in 2008. What is in the bill are regulatory tools that even Simon Johnson likes. The bill clarifies lines of regulatory authority and responsibility and should cut down on abusive 'competitive regulation.' "

I'd add a few more major wins. Bringing derivatives onto exchanges and into clearinghouses is a huge victory. In 2007, the over-the-counter -- and almost entirely unregulated -- derivatives market was worth about $700 trillion in notional value, and regulators had no idea what went where and few firms had serious capital or margin requirements. Those days are over.
(click on title of this piece for more of the informative article)