Wow! Pro-Wall Street Obama lauds House passage of toughest financial laws since New Deal

[WI_DEM]

(I thought, according to some DUers, that Obama was a Wall Street Democrat, yet he favors this legislation):

WASHINGTON (AP) — The House passed the most ambitious restructuring of federal financial regulations since the New Deal on Friday, aiming to head off any replay of last year's Wall Street failures that plunged the nation deep into recession.

The sprawling legislation would give the government new powers to break up companies that threaten the economy, create a new agency to oversee consumer banking transactions and shine a light into shadow financial markets that have escaped the oversight of regulators.

The vote was a party-line 223-202. No Republicans voted for the bill; 27 Democrats voted against it.

While a victory for the administration, the legislation dilutes some of President Barack Obama's recommendations, carving out exceptions to some of its toughest provision. The burden now shifts to the Senate, which is not expected to act on its version of a regulatory overhaul until early next year.

The president praised the House action Friday, and called on Congress to act swiftly to get the bill to the White House for his signature.

http://my.earthlink.net/article/top?guid=20091211/7e150dcd-3ba8-4b89-bda8-70bee5f19016

[TwilightGardener]

1. Even in its supposedly diluted form, 27 DEMOCRATS voted against it. WTF??

[Davis_X_Machina]

9. 25 Blue Dogs....

...and Marcy Kaptur and Dennis Kucinich.

Even Pete DiFazio voted for it, so it split the Immaculate Conception Caucus.

[tabasco]

14. Kucinich has become nearly as big a moron as Nader

"Doing nothing is better than doing some good." - Dennis Kucinich

[emulatorloo]

2. Sounds good,lets hope the Senate doesn't screw it up too bad.

[truedelphi]

3. You are using the AP was a source where AP stands for applied Propaganda.

Very diluted bill, and hardly what we need.

Of course Obama says it's good.

[WI_DEM]

8. sorry about that--here are a few more

Yeah, I know Kucinich voted against it, so that automatically makes it a bad bill.

New York Times:
House Passes Bill Tightening Financial Rules
December 11, 2009, 3:16 pm
The House on Friday approved a Democratic plan to significantly tighten federal regulation of Wall Street and the financial sector, advancing a far-reaching Congressional response to the financial crisis still reverberating through the economy, The New York Times’s Carl Hulse reports.

http://dealbook.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/12/11/house-passes-bill-tightening-financial-rules/

Here is PBS:

Financial Regulatory Overhaul Passes House
By: Carolyn O'Hara

In a vote of 223-202, the House passed sweeping changes Friday afternoon to the way the financial system is regulated, with the creation of a new consumer watchdog agency, new authority for the Fed to police financial firms, and a new council to identify too-big-to-fail firms, as well as a process to break them apa
The enormous bill, what many are calling the most significant financial regulation passed by Congress since the Great Depression and certainly since the financial crisis, contains a laundry list of reforms, including:

Creating a new Consumer Financial Protection Agency to regulate consumer lending;

Endowing "dissolution authority" to the federal government to break apart large, failing financial institutions, as well as the creation of a $150 billion fund, paid into by financial firms, to pay for the costs of the dissolutions;

Establishing a council of regulators to police the financial system for systemic risks and identify too-big-to-fail firms;

Providing oversight for the over-the-counter derivatives market, estimated to be worth around $600 trillion.
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/2009/12/financial-regulatory-overhaul-passes-house.html

I can find more, but I'm sure you won't be happy unless it's some liberal blog.

[truedelphi]

13. No I object to the Associated Press because they make stuff up.

Thank you for the other links.

[Stinky The Clown]

4. 1 .....

.... put stick into someone's eye.

2. Follow up with caustic snark.

3. Expect to change minds.

4. You Lose.

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

5. Wait for the other shoe.

I've watched this dance forever: One branch passes something while the other ignores it.

Meaningless- either way.

[tabbycat31]

6. I'd like to know the 27 Democrats who voted against it

[Davis_X_Machina]

10. The usual suspects....

...plus two who should know better.

[Drunken Irishman]

7. IMPEACH!

[mistertrickster]

11. Now this IS change we can believe in. Thank you, Obama & House Dems! nt

[girl gone mad]

12. What's in the bill? Does it break up the big banks or not?

If not: Fail.

I see cramdowns were defeated. Fail.

From a cursory perusal, I can already see the bill is full of massive derviatives loopholes. Epic fail.

It looks like Melissa Bean gutted the CFPA. EPIC FAIL.

I don't have time for an in-depth analysis right now, but it's clear that this bill doesn't measure up to your headline "toughest financial laws". Too many loopholes, too much has been watered down.

[amborin]

15. no, more info here:

"http://www.commondreams.org/newswire/2009/12/11-8>

" The bill does very little to address industry structure. Wall Street and the big banks engaged in reckless betting under the belief that they were too big to fail - that they were protected by a federal backstop. The biggest banks are now bigger than they were before the crisis. The solution to the too-big-to-fail problem is to break up the big banks so that the system can absorb their failure.

The bill fails to impose limits on bank size. A related problem is the intermixing of commercial and investment banking in single firms and resultant excessive risk taking by federal insurance-backed commercial banks. The bill fails to separate commercial and investment banking, and otherwise address this problem. Financial derivatives and other exotic instruments - labeled by Warren Buffett as weapons of financial mass destruction - fueled the crisis. The bill contains very modest regulations over financial derivatives but leaves more than a quarter of the market free from regulation and contains loopholes to enable another substantial chunk to escape regulatory control. Even for derivatives covered by the bill, the new rules are very limited. The bill does not establish a regulated exchange for derivatives trades. It does not ban financial instruments that do little other than enable high-stakes gambling. And it does not require the purveyors of derivative instruments to prove that the benefits of their new products outweigh the costs and risks to the financial system.

The bill also fails to tackle seriously the problem of executive and high-level pay. Wall Street mocks the Congress - and the American people - by preparing to pay tens of billions of dollars in bonuses in the shadow of a vote on financial regulation and while the financial sector continues to benefit from trillions of dollars of public support. At a minimum, we need binding rules to mandate that bonus pay be tied to long-term performance."

[Kingofalldems]

16. Blue Dogs ---freepers love em

They just love those Blue Dogs and are proud to show it.