Senate Passes Finance Bill

Senate Passes Finance Bill; The Wall Street Journal

The Senate on Thursday approved the most extensive overhaul of financial-sector regulation since the 1930s, hoping to avoid a repeat of the financial crisis that hit the U.S. economy starting in 2007. The legislation passed the Senate 59 to 39 and must now be reconciled with a similar bill passed by the House of Representatives in December, before it can be sent to President Barack Obama to be signed into law.

The controversial measure, supported by the Obama administration, sets up new regulatory bodies and restricts the actions of banks and other financial firms. It is designed to try to make order of the cascading regulatory chaos that ensued in 2008 when mammoth banks and some unregulated financial firms collapsed, and public funds were used to save them. Among other things, the legislation would:

• Establish a new council of "systemic risk" regulators to monitor growing risks in the financial system, with the goal of preventing companies from becoming too big to fail and stopping asset bubbles from forming, such as the one that led to the housing crisis.

• Create a new consumer protection division within the Federal Reserve charged with writing and enforcing new rules that target abusive practices in businesses such as mortgage lending and credit-card issuance.

• Empower the Federal Reserve to supervise the largest, most complex financial companies to ensure that the government understands the risks and complexities of firms that could pose a risk to the broader economy.

• Allow the government in extreme cases to seize and liquidate a failing financial company in a way that protects taxpayers from future bailouts.

• Give regulators new powers to oversee the giant derivatives market, increasing transparency by forcing most contracts to be traded through third-parties instead of only between banks and their customers. Derivatives, which are complex financial instruments, are often used to hedge risk. Speculative trading in the contracts led to losses at many banks in the 2008 crisis.

Opponents of the bill worry that the government is overreacting, and over-regulating the financial industry. They worry the measures will crimp the free flow of capital in the U.S. economy.

"It will inevitably contract credit," said Sen. Judd Gregg (R., N.H.), who says the Senate bill "is probably undermining the system…probably making for a weaker system."

Sen. Gregg was one of 37 Republicans to vote against the 1,500-page bill. But the legislation ultimately passed with a narrow bipartisan majority. Four Republicans joined with 53 Democrats and the Senate's two independents in support of the package. Two Democrats voted against the bill, and two senators weren't present for the vote.

Read the whole article here.

Comment: This has to be the most foolish piece of legislation we have seen since the banker bailout. Our congress critters just gave regulatory power to a non-government organization, the Federal Reserve, who is at the root of all the financial problems we have experienced since 2008. On top of that complete regulatory power has been given de facto to Goldman Sachs!

The US Senate has abandon is rightful place to regulate this commerce. Can there be any clearer reason to repeal the 17th Amendment?