What Does The Financial Reform Bill Do Other Than Being Completely And Utterly Worthless?
by ilene - July 15th, 2010 6:44 pm
What Does The Financial Reform Bill Do Other Than Being Completely And Utterly Worthless?
Courtesy of Michael Synder at The Economic Collapse
Is it possible to write a 2,300 page piece of legislation that accomplishes next to nothing and is pretty much completely and utterly worthless? The answer is yes. Barack Obama has been trumpeting the Dodd-Frank financial reform bill as the "biggest rewrite of Wall Street rules since the Great Depression", but the truth is that after the Wall Street lobbyists got done carving it up, the bill that was left was so watered down and so toothless that it essentially accomplishes nothing except creating even more government bureaucracy and even more mind-numbing paperwork.
The bill is so riddled with loopholes for the big banks that it is basically the legislative equivalent of Swiss cheese. The Democrats in the Senate were ecstatic when they announced that they had secured the 60 votes needed to pass this legislation, but when they are asked about what the financial reform bill will do, most of them are left stammering for some kind of cohesive response. The sad truth is that most of them probably don’t understand the bill and none of them will probably ever read the entire thing.
So will the financial reform bill do any good at all?
Well, yes.
A very, very small amount.
Essentially, it is kind of like going over to the Pacific Ocean and scooping out a couple of cups of water.
That is about how much good this bill is going to do.
But U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is making this sound like this is some kind of history-changing legislation….
"We’re cleaning up Wall Street."
Oh really?
Charles Geisst, professor of finance at Manhattan College recently had the following to say about this absolutely toothless bill….
Like health-care reform, this bill is being drawn up to grab headlines but its details betray it as nothing more than a slap on the wrist for Wall Street. It is true that Wall Street can commit grand theft and apparently get off with nothing more than community service.
The truth is that most of us never expected the U.S. government to truly take on Wall Street. The relationship between the two is just way too cozy for that to happen.
So does the financial reform bill actually accomplish anything?
Yes.