Same old, same old

It's hard to notice the battle going on over financial reform, what with our attention focused on the two most important issues of the day: the Tonight Show battle and various old white men coming up with new ways to say "fuck those darkies." But it seems that financial reform is going to go the way of health reform and the stimulus, where the bill starts off in a weak compromised position, is further compromised and weakened in an attempt to placate industry complaints, and is finally completely gutted when a hugely popular initiative that also serves as the most effective part of the reform is killed because it just benefits regular people a little too much.

The new shiny toy that Americans are deemed too childish to ever be allowed? The Consumer Financial Protection Agency. Because why would consumers need protection from financial companies? But at least one person is sounding the alarm bells and waving red flags: Elizabeth Warren.

Under pressure from big banks fighting hard to kill or weaken it, senators are said to be discussing downgrading the CFPA from an independent agency to something less than that.
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"The CFPA is the best indicator of whether Congress will reform Wall Street or whether it will continue to give Wall Street whatever it wants," she told Reuters in an interview.
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The problem is that a strong CFPA directly threatens the banks' ability to sell confusing, deceptive, fee-heavy financial products that generate huge profits, Warren said.
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"Right now we're writing the final chapter in this story. It will show whether we're going back to the first move, letting the industry write the rules again, or whether the crisis actually changed something."

One does appreciate the lengths with which Warren is going to explain that an independent government organization with power to regulate and shield Americans from abusive subprime mortgages, credit default swaps, and other noxious shit that the financial industry used to loot money out of the general public... is a good idea. It's just a damn shame she's doing it with logic and a sense that what she's saying is obvious to anyone with a functioning brain.

That's not the way government works. See one person yells "I have an obvious good idea that clearly helps our current situation", then business yells "But, but, but... profits"and then our elected betters decide that to err on the safe side they better listen to big business and, hell, just let them write the regulations in the first place.

So let's see, on one side we have a smart woman who has been at the forefront of this crisis warning people about the various dangers swirling around and advocating for serious, common sense measures to protect the country from falling into the same economic trap. On the other side we have the people who caused this mess, arguing that the status quo must be maintained so that they can cause all the same problems again. Gee, I wonder who will win that battle?

Still, nice try Elizabeth. Try not to gloat too hard when we fall into the same financial canyon again and the whole "who could have foreseen" wailing starts up again.