Courtesy of Pam Martens.
President Obama Calls Surprise Meeting With Financial Stability Oversight Council Members, March 7, 2016
The problem with stereotyping Republicans is that when they are screaming from the rooftops about a legitimate fraud, Democrats don’t believe them — even when the evidence is overpowering that they are right.
For years now, Republicans have been screaming that the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act that was signed into law in 2010 by President Obama is a fraud on the public.
Few have examined Dodd-Frank’s failed promises as carefully as Wall Street On Parade. The legislation promised to rein in derivatives – it didn’t. It promised to end the future need for taxpayer bailouts of too-big-to-fail banks. It didn’t. It promised to institute the Volcker Rule to prevent banks from gambling with insured deposits. It didn’t. It promised to reform the practices of the ratings agencies that played a pivotal role in the 2008 collapse. It didn’t.
Dodd-Frank did two great things: it created the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) which has played a major role in exposing and disciplining companies that abuse consumers in areas like credit cards, auto loans, student loans, and mortgages. Dodd-Frank also created the Office of Financial Research in the U.S. Treasury Department – which has been sending out regular warnings that Wall Street is still a dangerous, toxic brew of interconnectedness while putting a bright light on how the Fed is mismanaging its stress tests of the mega Wall Street banks.
But these two agencies which are valiantly working in the public interest are no match for how Wall Street has been allowed by the Obama administration to game the designed-to-be-gamed provisions of Dodd-Frank.
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