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If you think Congress' last-minute spending bill is just about budgetary matters and avoiding yet another government shutdown, think again. Tucked into the measure is language backed by Republicans and Wall Street-friendly Democrats to roll back landmark bank regulations passed in the wake of the financial crisis of 2008. The key political question now is: Will the cadre of populist Democratic legislators who have made their name being tough on Wall Street use their power to stop the legislation in its tracks?
At least one seems ready to do just that. A source in the office of Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts says she will not vote for the omnibus bill if it includes the provisions at issue, which relate to the trading of derivatives. Experts have said these complex financial instruments, such as credit default swaps on mortgage-backed securities, played a key role in creating and exacerbating the financial crisis of 2008.
That led Congress in 2010 to pass the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, which explicitly says that federal guarantees against losses -- such as from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation -- do not apply to banks' most complex derivative transactions. The regulation, which was supposed to take effect next year, was designed to force financial institutions to separate those transactions from more traditional government-guaranteed banking services. It was also supposed to compel banks to separately fund derivative transactions with private money, rather than with government-guaranteed deposits.
Lawmakers Attach Wall Street Deregulation To Omnibus Bill
The measure would place roadblocks in front of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and the Securities and Exchange Commission if they tried to supervise overseas swaps trading by U.S. institutions, activities they are trying to regulate on the belief that U.S.-based financial institutions -- and possibly taxpayers -- ultimately would be on the hook if swaps trading led to massive losses. Instead, it would allow for overseas activities to be regulated by foreign jurisdictions.
House Approves Derivatives Deregulation Bills That Would Open More Loopholes For Wall Street
Less than 6 years after one of the biggest financial collapses in our country's history and these friggin morons think THIS TIME it will be different.
Unbe-friggin-leavable.