the Dodd bill

Because there are several fronts where the Senate should be disappointing Americans, Sen. Chris Dodd unveiled his Financial Reform Bill yesterday. The early verdict? Most people seem to like it because its a strong opening gambit. What does it do? Namely it consolidates four regulatory agencies into one called the Financial Institutions Regulatory Administration, strips the Fed of regulatory powers over banks, deals with "too big to fail" with a Agency for Financial Stability that has abilities and powers of supervision and regulation, create a Consumer Financial Protection Agency, and also tries to revamp credit ratings, hedge funds, and shareholder rights. But as I am not an economist and have currently misplaced my wallet, you should go read Mike Konczal's breakdown of the bill and what it does.

So people actually like the Dodd bill, think it's a strong bill, and think it will do a lot to curb a lot of the negative practices and lax oversight that has become a hallmark of the financial and banking industries. So why should you be worried? Because this is as good as the bill is ever going to look. It's all downhill from here. It actually includes some unpopular proposals. Not unpopular to people with functioning brains, but unpopular to the financial industry and some of our elected betters.

Like consolidating all the regulatory agencies into one, which wasn't favored by the Obama Administration or the division of Goldman-Sachs it has running the Treasury. Also unpopular is the Consumer Financial Protection Agency, because it would do stuff like protect consumers from financial agencies. The Chamber of Commerce, who are always looking out for the good of the American people, has already spent millions trying to kill this and its essentially shaping up to be the "public option" battle in this bill: of obvious good to the people, but opposed by large chunks of lawmakers because we must preserve corporations unfettered ability to molest our wallets with impunity.

So read up, because this is the last you'll see of the bill as is. Soon you'll see that banks and financial mega-corporations, which were unpopular with lawmakers for that week they had to pretend to be mad at that industry, will soon again become trusted agencies as Republicans and Blue Dogs climb out from under rocks to side with them over the common, obvious good. It couldn't happen any other way. I look to be at least as disappointed by this as I am with health care. So get cracking Senate, that's a lot of disappointment to achieve, you may have to work weekends. So....shit, would you look at that, I found my wallet. Finally, some good news.