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NYT edit board says Hillary Clinton's Wall Street plan is stronger than Bernie Sanders'
Jennifer Epstein ?@jeneps 1h1 hour agoNYT edit board says Hillary Clinton's Wall Street plan is stronger than Bernie Sanders' http://mobile.nytimes.com/2016/02/27/opinion/a-better-way-to-control-the-banks.html …
_)___In his campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination, Senator Bernie Sanders has made breaking up the banks a central plank of his economic agenda. The idea has merit. Smaller, more manageable banks would allow for better internal controls over dubious ethical behavior and better regulatory oversight of risky business practices that seem entrenched despite efforts at reform.
But it is also a distraction. It offers a distant and politically uncertain solution to the problem of too-big-to-fail banks that the incremental Dodd-Frank financial reforms of 2010 have already begun to address. In the process, it plays into the hands of Republican critics of Dodd-Frank, who want to repeal the post-crisis reforms and block any further regulation. That’s why Hillary Clinton’s plan — to defend and build on Dodd-Frank — makes more sense at this time.
What gets lost in the discussion is that Dodd-Frank, properly executed, would help to create the conditions for breaking up large and complex banks. That’s because the banks would face rising regulatory costs, which means they might well be worth more to investors if taken apart. Essentially, effective regulation and market forces would work together to make banks smaller and safer.
Mrs. Clinton has vowed to fight for higher capital requirements, which can be accomplished without new legislation if regulators willing to impose them are appointed. Of course, that would not be as blunt a way to shrink the banks as simply requiring them to stop their riskiest trading. Still, it would not preclude breaking up the banks at some later date. And it would make the journey from here to there a safer one.
As campaign slogans go, “more capital” does not have the same ring to it as “break up the banks.” But both are paths to the same destination. Mr. Sanders has the right goal. Mrs. Clinton has the right means.
read more: http://mobile.nytimes.com/2016/02/27/opinion/a-better-way-to-control-the-banks.html?_r=0
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Bold for emphasis added:
Vanishing Act
U.S. banks moved billions of dollars in trades beyond Washington’s reach
By Charles Levinson - Filed Aug. 21, 2015, 2 p.m. GMT
~Snip~
In 2009, soon after Gensler took the job, Congress was hashing out the Dodd-Frank bill. A powerful Republican congressman, Rep. Spencer Bachus of Alabama, put forth an amendment that would keep banks’ overseas operations outside the new rules. Alarmed, the Democratic co-sponsor of the bill, Rep. Barney Frank, asked Gensler to craft a counter-proposal.
Gensler and his staff tucked a 17-word insert into a 228-page amendment to the Dodd-Frank bill. The addition seemed to assure banks that the new derivatives rules wouldn’t apply to their overseas trading operations. Bachus backed off. But the insert was craftily worded to leave wiggle room. If those activities “have a direct and significant connection with activities in, or effect on, commerce of the United States,” then the rules would apply, Gensler’s addition read.
One year later, at a late 2010 meeting of the CFTC’s board, one of Gensler’s legal aides declared that the passage in fact gave the regulator worldwide reach over U.S. banks’ trading operations.
A coalition of 13 global banks banded together to fight the clause. They hired Edward J. Rosen, a derivatives lawyer with Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton, to lead the effort.
?v=562619050116
http://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-swaps/
U.S. banks moved billions of dollars in trades beyond Washington’s reach
By Charles Levinson - Filed Aug. 21, 2015, 2 p.m. GMT
~Snip~
In 2009, soon after Gensler took the job, Congress was hashing out the Dodd-Frank bill. A powerful Republican congressman, Rep. Spencer Bachus of Alabama, put forth an amendment that would keep banks’ overseas operations outside the new rules. Alarmed, the Democratic co-sponsor of the bill, Rep. Barney Frank, asked Gensler to craft a counter-proposal.
Gensler and his staff tucked a 17-word insert into a 228-page amendment to the Dodd-Frank bill. The addition seemed to assure banks that the new derivatives rules wouldn’t apply to their overseas trading operations. Bachus backed off. But the insert was craftily worded to leave wiggle room. If those activities “have a direct and significant connection with activities in, or effect on, commerce of the United States,” then the rules would apply, Gensler’s addition read.
One year later, at a late 2010 meeting of the CFTC’s board, one of Gensler’s legal aides declared that the passage in fact gave the regulator worldwide reach over U.S. banks’ trading operations.
A coalition of 13 global banks banded together to fight the clause. They hired Edward J. Rosen, a derivatives lawyer with Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton, to lead the effort.
?v=562619050116
http://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-swaps/
They brought us the Iraq War?
They ARE the 1%?
