The JOBS Act: Encouraging Startups, Supporting Small Businesses (signing)

[ProSense]

The JOBS Act: Encouraging Startups, Supporting Small Businesses

Steve VanRoekel



Earlier this week, I was back in my home state of Iowa talking with tech entrepreneurs about the Administration’s progress leveraging technology to innovate with less, improve transparency and efficiency, and better serve the American people. As fellow tech junkies, we spent plenty of time talking about Government’s role in open data, application programming interfaces to Federal systems and more. But we also had a chance to talk more broadly about the vital role start-ups and small businesses play in strengthening our economy, creating jobs, and nurturing innovation.

President Obama recognizes the critical role these types of high-growth startups and innovative entrepreneurs play in creating an economy that’s built to last. That’s why back in the fall – and again in his State of the Union Address – the President put forward a series of specific proposals to ease regulations that prevent aspiring entrepreneurs from accessing the capital they need to grow and create jobs. Today, the President put many of those proposals to work when he signed into law the Jumpstart Our Business Startups (JOBS) Act – a bipartisan bill that will help encourage startups and support our nation’s small businesses.

As the President said at today’s signing, “this bill is a potential gamechanger” for America’s entrepreneurs. For the first time, Americans will be able to go online and invest in small businesses and entrepreneurs. Not only will this help small businesses and high-growth enterprises raise capital more efficiently, but it will also allow small and young firms to expand and hire faster.

Whether you’re in Silicon Valley, Silicon Alley, or Silicon Prairie, this bill is a win-win for small businesses, for the economy, and for the American people.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2012/04/05/jobs-act-encouraging-startups-supporting-small-businesses

[MadHound]

1. Cutting regulations, setting us up for another financial swindle and fall

Gotta love bipartisan greed.

[ProSense]

2. Makes you

"Gotta love bipartisan greed."

...wonder why DeFazio, Ellison, Frank Waters and other progressives in the House sided with "greed."

http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2012/roll132.xml

Frankly, I don't thing the bill lives up to the hype from either side.

[freshwest]

12. Okay now.

[MannyGoldstein]

3. You forgot to mention further deregulating bankers and

most large businesses.

[ProSense]

4. Actually

"You forgot to mention further deregulating bankers and most large businesses."

...I don't think you're right.

Regulators Move Closer to Oversight of Nonbanks

By ANNIE LOWREY

WASHINGTON — The Financial Stability Oversight Council, the country’s top financial regulatory body, moved closer on Tuesday to increasing its oversight of nonbank financial institutions, like hedge funds, private equity firms and insurers.

The 10-member council, headed by the Treasury secretary, Timothy F. Geithner, voted unanimously to adopt a rule that will designate some of those firms as “systemically important financial institutions,” and put them under stronger regulatory supervision.

The rule “is an important tool provided in Dodd-Frank for extending the perimeter of transparency, oversight and prudential supervision over parts of the financial system that can be a particularly important source of credit to the economy and potentially important source of risk,” Mr. Geithner said during the 10-minute meeting.

The oversight council will now begin a three-part process of determining which firms are subject to additional scrutiny from regulators. The Dodd-Frank financial regulatory reform law, which passed in the summer of 2010, automatically put banks with more than $50 billion in assets under stricter standards.

- more -

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/04/business/economy/regulators-move-closer-to-scrutinizing-nonbanks.html

Banks’ preemptive strike against Dodd-Frank

By Suzy Khimm

When Deutsche Bank reorganized its U.S. operations this week in response to new banking rules, it was the latest manifestation of what both supporters and opponents of the Dodd-Frank regulatory overhaul predicted would happen: The law has pushed big banks to reorganize — to comply with the new rules on Wall Street, as well as to avoid their impact...Deutsche Bank and London-based Barclays have moved their commercial banks from their U.S. subsidiaries into their global firms to avoid new, more stringent capital requirements — even though they don’t go into effect until July 2015.

But that doesn’t necessarily mean that Dodd-Frank has fallen short of what its authors intended. By giving up its status as a U.S. bank holding company, Deutsche Bank is forfeiting its access to the Federal Reserve’s emergency lending window. Doing so effectively cuts itself out of any future government-backed bailout in the event of a crisis. One of the overarching goals of Dodd-Frank was limiting taxpayer exposure to bailing out big firms.

“They’re saying, ‘If this is the price we have to pay, we’re going to shed that protection — we’re not too big to fail,’ ” said University of Maryland law professor Michael Greenberger, a former regulator at the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. Deutsche Bank was the Fed’s second-largest discount-window borrower during the 2008-2009 crisis.

<...>

The Volcker Rule, which is scheduled to take effect in July, also prohibits banks from providing more than 3 percent of capital in private-equity or hedge funds, prompting banks to spin off those operations as well. Other Dodd-Frank rules recently prompted insurance giant MetLife to sell its FDIC-insured banking unit, which would have subjected the firm to greater regulation and scrutiny by the Federal Reserve.

- more -

http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/banks-preemptive-strike-against-dodd-frank/2012/03/23/gIQATnUmWS_story.html

[MannyGoldstein]

5. "easier for companies to cheat investors" says SEC head

Jobs Act could remove investor protections, SEC chair Mary Schapiro warns

A bill the House passed last week to make it easier for companies to raise money could also make it easier for companies to cheat investors, the chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission says.

It’s called the Jobs Act — an acronym for “Jumpstart Our Business Startups” — and lawmakers of both parties have promoted it as a way to boost a weak economy. But regulators and investor advocates have argued that it could expose investors to fraud.

...

SEC Chairman Mary L. Schapiro added her voice to the criticism in a letter sent to leaders of the Senate banking committee on Wednesday night.

“Too often, investors are the target of fraudulent schemes disguised as investment opportunities,” Schapiro wrote. “As you know, if the balance is tipped to the point where investors are not confident that there are appropriate protections, investors will lose confidence in our markets, and capital formation will ultimately be made more difficult and expensive.”

[ProSense]

6. That comment

was made about the House version. Do you have her comment on the version that passed the Senate?

[MannyGoldstein]

7. What enforcable difference is there

between the two bills?

Zilch, as far as I know.

[ProSense]

8. For one

the Merkley amendment.

Here is the President today:

<...>

Of course, to make sure Americans don’t get taken advantage of, the websites where folks will go to fund all these start-ups and small businesses will be subject to rigorous oversight. The SEC is going to play an important role in implementing this bill. And I’ve directed my administration to keep a close eye as this law goes into effect and to provide me with regular updates.

It also means that, to all the members of Congress who are here today, I want to say publicly before I sign this bill, it's going to be important that we continue to make sure that the SEC is properly funded, just like all our other regulatory agencies, so that they can do the job and make sure that our investors get adequate protections.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2012/04/05/remarks-president-jobs-act-bill-signing

[MannyGoldstein]

9. That does zero to answer my question

unless I'm missing something.

[ProSense]

10. I'll try

"that does zero to answer my question"

...again.

You asked: "What enforcable difference is there between the two bills?"

I answered: For one, the Merkley amendment.

You understand that the House bill was changed in the Senate, right?

[MannyGoldstein]

11. "However, I voted against final passage today because"

“However, I voted against final passage today because the Senate did not address dangerous new loopholes in other sections of the bill. The overall package will allow companies to mislead investors, regulators and the public.”
-- Jeff Merkley