Banking Reform Turns Into "Chump Change" to Empower the Banks Further and Ruin Us All, Thanks to Dodd and the G.O.P... Second Crisis, Anyone? LET THEM EAT SUBPRIME!

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Written by Jim McGrath Monday, 08 March 2010 12:13

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WELL, IN THE SPIRIT OF "BIPARTISANSHIP," DODD HAS SOLD AMERICA OUT TO THE BANKERS. Using Shelby and the G.O.P. as conduits, the banking lobby has gutted real reform by rewriting legislation to put any consumer financial protection agency under the Fed. While much of the public thinks the "Fed" is a government watchdog agency due to the word "federal" in its title, it is really a collection of bankers and finance people appointed by the President to, in reality, represent the banking interests. IT IS OF THE BANKERS, BY THE BANKERS AND FOR THE BANKERS, AND NOW, SO TOO IS AMERICA. THE PEOPLE WENT OUT THE WINDOW ALONG WITH THE FED'S OPEN WINDOW ALLOWING THE BANKS TO BORROW AT NOTHING AND ENSURE THAT THEY GROW FROM "too big to fail" to "TOO BIG NOT TO SUCCEED AND HAVE SUCCESS GUARANTEED AT THE EXPENSE OF ALL OTHERS"...

Robert Kuttner's article in The American Prospect details how Dodd rewrote a reform bill into an empowerment vehicle for the Fed, warning it is a very dangerous thing to continue making these banks bigger, more powerful and less accountable. HAVEN'T WE LEARNED FROM THE FIRST CRISIS? WE GOT INTO THIS MESS DUE TO FORGETTING THE LESSON OF THE GREAT DEPRESSION. PERHAPS THAT IS WHAT WE WILL NEED IN ORDER TO FINALLY STRAIGHTEN THINGS OUT.

OBAMA, Kuttner notes, started out with reform minded advisers, including Volcker. He then abandoned these for Wall Streeters Geithner, Bernanke, Summers and Rubin, the geniuses who started all this in the first place, with the repeal of Glass-Steagall and other foolhardy let-business-do-whatever-it-wants deregulation.

BIPARTISANSHIP OF OFFERING THE G.O.P. AND CORPORATE DEMOCRATS WHAT THEY WANT, MORE OF THE SAME, IS NEITHER BIPARTISANSHIP NOR REFORM, BUT CHUMP CHANGE DESIGNED TO CONTINUE THESE ILLS, FATTEN WALL STREET AND RUIN US FURTHER. Kuttner says, "If Obama is serious about financial reform, he needs to fight for it -- against corporate Democrats as well as Republicans, and against his chums on Wall Street. It's the same lesson that Obama is belatedly learning on health care. Radical reform is impossible without presidential leadership. Paul Volcker deserves better than intermittent gestures. So do the American people."

Rep. Barney Frank, when hearing about it, called the move "a joke." As reported more fully by Bloomberg News on how Dodd and the banks have given the industry victory: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=a..E.59TT96Y

But perhaps most clearly and eloquently stated, are the warnings and advice of Elizabeth Warren, head of the congressional oversight panel examining TARP, who has the nerve to speak truth to power. A soft spoken woman, plainly not prone to violence, she frankly states that necessary, real reform be accomplished if necessary in an all-out fight, at great cost, with "plenty of teeth and blood left on the floor" -- a fight which we dearly hope occurs. It is a battle for the future of the country. Locating under the Fed, and thus gutting its independence is to eviscerate its function, disempower its ability and empower Wall Street even further: "My first choice is a strong consumer agency," the Harvard Law professor and federal bailout watchdog said in an interview with the Huffington Post. "My second choice is no agency at all and plenty of blood and teeth left on the floor." See http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/03/03/fight-for-the-cfpa-is-a-d_n_483707.html

Is this the 21st century equivalent of, "the peasants madame, they have no bread"; "The middle class, the economy, Messeeurs Bernanke and Dodd, it is crumbling. Then let them take subprime!" The public, thankfully, is gradually becoming aware that the Fed is not some type of federal government watchdog; it is of the bankers, for the bankers and by the bankers. Worse than putting the fox over the henhouse.

They are too powerful and really, for the long run, as anyone can see, too stupid. Blinded by greed, they are leading us to ruin. Then, if things really reach their natural conclusion, they will act shocked as the Bastille is stormed on the rubble.

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