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Glass-Steagal. It is much more limited that its original proposed for, and even in its original proposed form it was a watered down replacement for Glass-Steagal. So now it is a watered down replacement of a watered down replacement of Glass-Steagal. If that is "very similar" then a pond is very similar to an ocean.
Even if you are correct that the rules are still being made, the big discussion right now about whether or not Lobbyists can take part in eroding what is already in place, which is deliberately and blatantly inadequate because of the input lobbyists have already had.
That's an attempt to close the barn door after the fire.
If passed, it would prevent the lobbyists from eliminating even the sham of reform that exists now. But it would not do anything to retroactively make the existing reforms substantial. They were not substantial, and they are not suddenly going to become substantial.
Your second link shows that one effort is being made to reduce executive compensation, but ignores that the consensus is already in that loopholes in the regulations (deliberately inserted upon request) allow corporations to change compensation from one form to another that is allowable. That is already being done. All over wall street Income levels are already going UP again across the board, not down. Some firms doubled compensation across the board for all employees above a certain level. Where regulations prohibit one method of paying executives they don't prohibit several others, so executives always get paid.
We needed Glass-Steagal. Everyone knew it. We didn't get it because everyone knew it. That's why we didn't get it, and why this administration keeps trying to claim that not getting Glass-Steagal is just as good as getting Glass-Steagal. But if that was true, they could more easily have reinstated Glass-Steagal.
We also needed comprehensive regulation of derivatives. Not just a regulation some reporting requirements after a big sale of derivatives. Issuing paperwork that tells the SEC about a big sale after it has happened doesn't prevent an economic collapse. Comprehensive regulations in any industry have to prohibit risky actions, not require that you tell someone about it.
Preventing a huge behemoth investment/banking/finance corporation from making a trade through one department can't succeed when they can simply do the trade legally through one of their subsidiaries and then move the money through their books. That bypasses this so-called reform entirely. That's wouldn't be a loophole if they deliberately wrote the legislation so that mega-corporations can't be broken up, and the restrictions only apply to small companies who don't have subsidiaries they can use for this shell-game.
The economic type of economic risks that nearly destroyed our economy still are not prohibited, and won't be prohibited as long as the "too big to fail" corporations are allowed to keep growing and consolidating into "Even Bigger and can't be allowed to fail" groups of just a few huge giants that have immense power and control, not only over everything on Wall Street, but at the Fed, and in DC too.
They used all of our stimulus money to buy all of the remaining small competition. Only small banks and small companies went out of business, and are still going out of business, (with the one exception of Bear-Stearns, of course) so the remaining few Wall Street Giants are now much, much Larger, and pose an even greater risk to the economy now if they fail than 2 years ago.
And they will fail at some point because they know that they make better profits by taking bigger risks, and because they can't be allowed to fail, our tax money still must be spent to bail them out of any losses they take. Their companies are still immortal because our taxes still promise to pay for their losses. AT NO POINT have we passed any reform that requires any of these companies to pay for their own risks or mistakes. But we have codified that they cannot be allowed to fail.
If you really think we saw any reform, would it have allowed the very conditions that caused the economic collapse to not only continue, but to also get worse? Would we have the giants getting bigger? would we have those giants already inflating 2 known bubbles as we speak (that we know of so far), sucking profit out our economy and preventing a recovery. (food and municipal bonds.)
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