Dear Matt Taibbi, Dodd-Frank is meaningful reform

[ProSense]

People like Matt Taibbi continue to misrepresent the bill with statements like this:

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Dodd-Frank was never going to be a meaningful reform unless these two fateful Clinton-era laws – commercial banks gambling with taxpayer money, and unregulated derivatives being traded in the dark – were reversed. The story of how the last real shot at reining in Wall Street got routed tells you everything you need to know about how, and on whose behalf, our government works. It was Congress at its most cowardly, deceptive best, with both parties teaming up to subject reform to death by a thousand paper cuts – with the worst cuts coming, literally, in the final moments before the bill's passage.

The first of the two final battles coalesced around an effort by Sens. Carl Levin of Michigan and Jeff Merkley of Oregon to implement the so-called "Volcker rule," a proposal designed to restore the firewall between investment houses and commercial banks. At the heart of Merkley-Levin was one key section: a ban on proprietary trading.

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Really?

So these things are not "meaningful reform":

• Regulating the credit ratings agencies by revoking the exemption granted under the Securities Act of 1933
  
  
• Reinstating Glass-Steagall via the Volcker Rule
  
  
• Establishing a first-ever consumer protection bureau
  
  
• Closing loopholes that will benefit consumers and farmers around the world
  
  
• Implementing the most significant financial regulatory reforms since the 1930