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Tag Archives: financial regulation

Luetkemeyer, Wagner want to help Equifax roll consumers

20 Wednesday Sep 2017

Posted by willykay in Uncategorized

≈ 1 Comment

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Ann Wagner, Blaine Luetkemeyer, Credit, Credit Reporting agancies, Equifax, financial regulation, Freedem from Eqifax Exploitation Act

Immediately after the recent Equifax hack that potentially put close to 150 million Americans at risk for identity theft, I wrote about how the event proved that Rep. Ann Wagner’s (R-2) bias against any regulation of the financial industry, and especially her vendetta against the oversight role of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) was contrary to the interests of the everyday Americans she ostensibly serves. Surely, I thought, these folks can be made to realize that enabling more disaster in the wake of disaster may be going just a bit too far.

Well no. The concept of wise stewardship always seems to  be too difficult for the Republican brain, as evidenced by this little financial tidbit in the LA Times:

Even as millions of consumers grapple with fallout from the Equifax data breach, Republican lawmakers are quietly backing legislation to deregulate credit agencies and make them even less accountable for wrongdoing.

Bills are pending in Congress to limit class-action damages for violations of the Fair Credit Reporting Act and to give credit agencies more latitude in profiting from identity theft protection products.

The legislation is part of sweeping efforts by Republican lawmakers to reduce oversight of banks and other financial-services firms, and to cripple or eliminate the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which has notched a successful track record of holding industry players accountable for unfair and illegal practices.

And who’s the engineer steering this “quiet” anti-citizen effort? Why no one other than Missouri Rep. Blaine Luetkemeyer (R-3), a member, along with Rep. Wagner, of the House Financial Services Committee, and Chair of the Subcommittee on Financial Institutions and Consumer Credit, which just held hearings on the proposed legislation – possibly inspired by successful , and, for the profitable credit reporting agencies involved, expensive, oversight exercised by the CFBP in the recent past. Luetkemeyer declared that the new legislation would ” streamline regulatory requirements and eliminate inefficiencies” and “better allow financial companies to serve their customers.”

Sadly for Luetkemeyer’s credibilty, the response of the LA Times reporter, David Lazarus, is closer to the truth when he observes that what “the legislation would do is reward credit agencies with greater regulatory elbow room and diminished accountability for screw-ups.” As far as I’m concerned, they’ve got far too much of that elbow room already – as Lazarus notes:

Consumer advocates say the Equifax breach should serve as a wake-up call for Americans that the three leading credit agencies — Equifax, Experian and TransUnion — are focused primarily on earning cash from people’s personal information, not keeping such information under lock and key.

“Consumers are not customers of these companies — they’re commodities,” said Chi Chi Wu, a staff attorney with the National Consumer Law Center. “We have no say over what they do with our data.”

There are, of course, Democrats on on the Financial Services Committee and its various subcommittes; Missouri Rep. Lacy Clay (D-1) serves on Luetkemeyer’s subcommittee, for example. But they’re there as representatives of the minority party in a congress which Republicans have publicly determined to run solely in service of Republican druthers, and, given the amounts of cash that the financial industry throws at sympathetic members of these plum committee posts, the Democrats are not likely to be heard if they do stand up. Same reasons hold when considering the inevitable death march of a Democratic bill offered in response to the Equifax farce, the Freedom from Equifax Exploitation Act.

Actually, the proposed Democratic legislation, mild as it is, probably doesn’t go nearly far enough. Michael Kevin Drum who has long noted the essentially abusive nature of our credit reporting system and urged greater regulatory oversight of the credit reporting agencies, observesd last week that:

… The credit reporting agencies have gotten away forever with treating consumers like bothersome children: screwing up their credit records, ruining their lives, making it deliberately difficult and expensive to lock accounts, and making money off the whole thing by offering “insurance” against problems that they themselves cause. Someone in Congress who allegedly cares about ordinary working folks should introduce a bill to regulate the hell out of these folks. Not only is it the right thing to do, but it’s hard to think of any industry that more richly deserves it.

Well somebody in Congress does care – Democrats mainly – but a fat lot of good it’ll do us. Because financial industry toadies like Luetkemeyer and Wagner are sitting pretty in their well-funded catbird seats and they aim to keep that campaign cash cushion well-padded.

Chutzpah, thy name is Ann Wagner

03 Monday Oct 2016

Posted by willykay in Uncategorized

≈ 1 Comment

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Ann Wagner, CFPB, Dodd-Frank, financial regulation, missouri, Wells Fargo

I signed up to get regular Email newsletters from Rep. Ann Wagner (R-2) and the latest is a doozy. Wagner had the audacity to say this to say about the recent disclosure of massive malfeasance on the part of the banking giant, Wells Fargo:

Earlier this year, the LA Times reported that Wells Fargo Bank employees opened over 2 million accounts without permission, leaving more than 1,100 Missouri customers victim to fraud and theft. Last week I took Wells Fargo CEO, John Stumpf, to task on the immoral and potentially criminal actions of the bank. Placing your money and wealth in the custody of a bank like Wells Fargo is a sacred display of public trust. They have betrayed our trust and taken advantage of consumers in order to meet sales performance goals and fraudulently improve earnings and share prices. This is reprehensible and I will continue to protect you and hold them accountable for their shameful activity.

Give me a break! This is just too rich coming from Wagner who is so tightly wedged into Big Banking’s pocket that she’s in danger of expiring from lack of oxygen.

As I have noted in previous posts, Wagner has worked tirelessly to help dismantle the Dodd-Frank financial reform law and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) which it created. Significantly, it was the CFPB that was responsible for exposing the Wells Fargo chicanery. Yet Wagner has fought tooth and nail and has done everything in her power to weaken its ability to exercise oversight of the financial industry.

Wagner evidently thinks that scolding a bank executive at one of those PR dog-and-pony shows (think Benghazi, the Clinton emails non-scandal) that the GOP-dominated House of Representatives has become famous for constitutes holding banks “accountable” and “protecting” constituents. Or she’s just trying to pull the wool over our eyes.

And she may be succeeding. Wagner’s standing for reelection this November against Democrat Bill Otto and, sadly, Wagner, the well-established, well-financed friend of Big Banking is widely expected to prevail.

Wagner stands up for CHOICE to deregulate banks, kill Dodd-Frank

17 Saturday Sep 2016

Posted by willykay in Uncategorized

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Ann Wagner, CFPB, CHOICE Act, Consumer Protection Financial Bureau, Dodd-Frank, financial regulation, missouri

Today in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch I read an article about the override of the Governor’s veto of SB656 (the guns unlimited “constitutional” carry gun law). In order to underline the dangerous potential of the new law, Kevin Allbrand, an official with the Fraternal Order of Police, is quoted saying “this is not some type of banking regulation, this is public safety and law enforcement safety.”

Not some kind of banking regulation? What kind of fool thinks we can ignore what happens with our money and still live safe, happy lives? Guns kill, it’s true, but what legislators do about banking regulation affects many more lives than even horrible gun laws.

Remember the 2008 Bush recession? Poor regulatory choices created a crisis that nearly plunged us into a depression rivaling that of the 1930s, a very bad time for lots of people. I bring the recession up not just because it’s a good example of the harm perpetrated by regulatory negligence and financial malfeasance, but because a gaggle of House legislators are working hard to return financial regulation to the pre-2008 status quo ante that nearly cratered our economy.

And right up front of that gaggle, you’ll find Missouri’s Ann Wagner (R-2). She gets lots of money from the financial industry and does her best to represent their interests. If you’re concerned about your financial welfare, you should pay attention to her pro-banking, anti-consumer priorities

Wagner has been a persistent player in Republican efforts to deregulate the banking industry back to its pre-2008 status. Her efforts to derail Department of Labor (DOL) fiuciary rules have been incorporated into the The Creating Hope and Opportunity for Investors, Consumers and Entrepreneurs (CHOICE) Act, a recent Republican effort to replace the Dodd-Frank Act which was enacted to protect Americans from the banking abuses typical before the Bush recession..

Wagner has persistently fought to strangle new DOL fiduciary rules that mandate that investment advisers privilege their clients interests over their own. Under the new rules, financial agents can no longer encourage clients to invest in inappropriate or sub-standard products which may kick back substantial fees to the advisor responsible for the sale. Wagner, and her generous banker clients, claim that if financial advisers can’t swindle their clients, they won’t reap enough of a profit to make advising small investors worthwhile. Only Wagner never uses the word “swindle.” See how it works?

Wagner has tried twice in the past few years to undo the new rules via direct legislation. Her Retail Investor Protection Act, H.R. 1090 – note the Bizarro World title – was aimed at incapacitating DOL rule-making ability in essentially the same way as her earlier effort, H.R. 2374. Both bills limped off to die elsewhere after passing out of the House. Apparently Wagner thinks the third time’s the charm since her zombie legislation is now back, incorporated into the CHOICE act.

The CHOICE Act, to be fair, contains many other problematic provisions apart from Wagner’s specific contributions. For example it proposes to repeal the Volcker Rule, and the Durbin amendment which limits fees for credit card transactions.

Notably, it would also cripple the GOP’s (and Wagner’s) special bête noire , the Consumer Protection Financial Bureau (CFPB) – the same agency that just fined Wells Fargo $185 million after exposing a scam wherein bank employees opened 2 million unauthorized, accounts for customers that fraudulently generated $1.5 million in fees for the bank – and earned bonuses and other incentives for the employees. Even before this coup, the CFPB had returned $11 billion to consumers who “were cheated on their mortgages, credit cards, checking accounts, and other financial products.” The CFPB is by any measure effective in pursuing its goals. Too effective for financial institutions used to running wild with our money.

It all just goes to show that when their financial industry clients howl, Wagner’s congressional clique gets to work to fix their ouchie. Voila the CHOICE Act. And if consumers bleed, so be it.

Thoughts on the Occupy phenomenom

13 Thursday Oct 2011

Posted by Michael Bersin in Uncategorized

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financial regulation, missouri, Money in Politics, Occupy Joplin, Occupy Pittsburg, Occupy Springfield, Occupy Wall Street, OccupySTL

Tomorrow at 4:00 p.m. there’ll be a labor solidarity march with OccupySTL which will be held in Kiener plaza; according to what I’ve heard, numerous progressive groups will be represented there. It should be big, so be there, as the saying goes, or be square (note: honesty compells me to admit that I will be unable to attend, hence square).

It’s not surprising that folks are rushing to join the 99% – it seems to be a movement whose time has come.  After two years of listening to the Tea Party dead-enders claim the mantle of “We the people,” while providing cover to a GOP intent on gutting our hard-won American social contract, a real populist alternative is actually overdue.  The Occupy movement just might be that alternative – it certainly seems to be taking off. Polls released today show that Americans favor Occupy Wall Street by a two-to-one margin. Even more revealing, only 28% of those polled have a favorable opinion of the Tea Party.

And everybody wants in. Just consider that even Pittsburg, Kansas (population ca. 20,000, located in a hard-core, hard-bitten, red zone), has its own Occupy Pittsburg demonstrators. In Missouri, there’s Occupy Joplin, Occupy Springfield. You name it, seems like somebody’s occupying it.  And this in spite of the fact, as per Matt Taibbi, that it isn’t an intrinsically easy sell:

… it’s extremely difficult to explain the crimes of the modern financial elite in a simple visual. The essence of this particular sort of oligarchic power is its complexity and day-to-day invisibility: Its worst crimes, from bribery and insider trading and market manipulation, to backroom dominance of government and the usurping of the regulatory structure from within, simply can’t be seen by the public or put on TV. There just isn’t going to be an iconic “Running Girl” photo with Goldman Sachs, Citigroup or Bank of America – just 62 million Americans with zero or negative net worth, scratching their heads and wondering where the hell all their money went and why their votes seem to count less and less each and every year.

Taibbi suggests that the generalized focus on financial malfeasance and government corruption rather than on specific demands has been a good strategy that has enabled the movement “to build numbers and stay in the fight.” He adds, though, that the time will come when greater specificity will be necessary, and to that end he offers what he characterizes as an example of a “short but powerful list of demands” – read it and see what you think.

From my perspective – which loses some legitimacy since I’m not out on the streets with the demonstrators – I think Taibbi is totally correct when he suggests that the Occupy movement’s goals should be few in number, and focused on the financial malfeasance that got us in this situation – although, to my mind, his suggestions may be almost too specific, and he fails to mention the most important aspect of that malfeasance, which is the role of money in government (although he does suggest that companies that receive bailout money not be permitted to lobby politicians). As long as Wall Street and big business can purchase politicians, nothing will change.

Senator Claire McCaskill (D): town hall in Concordia, Missouri – Q and A, part 4

20 Friday Aug 2010

Posted by Michael Bersin in Uncategorized

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Claire McCaskill, Concordia, financial regulation, health care reform, missouri, town hall

Senator Claire McCaskill (D) held a town hall in Concordia, Missouri at the Community Center Gymnasium on Tuesday, August 10th. Approximately sixty people attended.

Previously:

Senator Claire McCaskill (D): town hall in Concordia, Missouri (August 11, 2010)

Senator Claire McCaskill (D): town hall in Concordia, Missouri – media availability (August 11, 2010)

Senator Claire McCaskill (D): town hall in Concordia, Missouri – Q and A, part 1 (August 14, 2010)

Senator Claire McCaskill (D): town hall in Concordia, Missouri – Q and A, part 2 (August 15, 2010)

Senator Claire McCaskill (D): town hall in Concordia, Missouri – Q and A, part 3 (August 15, 2010)

The fourth and final part of the transcript for the audience question and answer session follows:

….Question: I feel like when you vote for health care making requirements for individuals, in this country we still [inaudible] individual freedom, the stimulus bill which is gonna cost so much money to my children and grandchildren, and financial reform, we all know has secret provisions in it and when I hear people like Nancy Pelosi and Chris Dodd say, you won’t know what’s in it ’til we vote for it, why do you vote for those things that are killing America’s freedoms?

Senator Claire McCaskill (D):  Okay, there are three, you asked about what, health care, the stimulus, and financial reg?

Question: Yeah, but I can go on.

Senator McCaskill: Okay.

Question: [inaudible] other examples.

Senator McCaskill: Well, um, I , I will tell you on the stimulus, um. [crosstalk]

Question: You said, Claire, if I can quote you, you said, if it wasn’t about jobs. And let me repeat, if it’s not about jobs we should not be doing it.

Senator McCaskill: Yep.

Question: Those are your exact words. And, it’s not about jobs I don’t believe…

…Senator McCaskill: Well, let me, let me tell you what the stimulus did and is doing. Just about every orange cone you see in Missouri is stimulus money. Now I know those people working out there on those road projects would say those are jobs. The money that is being spent in the State of Missouri is stimulus money for all the road projects right now. The money that went to Jeff City that kept them from having to cut a total of three billion more than they’ve cut from the state budget over the last two years, that was stimulus money. Now I guarantee you, there’s a school superintendent that’s here, if those cuts would have gone through she would have lost teachers. Those are jobs. Those teachers would be out of work. Uh, they weren’t put out of work because of the stimulus.  Of that state stabilization money was one third of it – going straight to state governments to decide how they needed to spend to keep there from being an economic disaster within each and every state. Almost a third of it was tax cuts. Those tax cuts are still coming out of people’s, uh, they’re still getting more money in their paychecks as we speak. [crosstalk]

Question: If you work.

Senator McCaskill: If you work. That’s exactly right. If you have a job, any kind of job, you don’t have to be rich. You can have any kind of working man job, working woman job and you’re getting less money taken out of your paycheck right now. That was all [inaudible]. And then we’ve got high speed rail money and I think for this community and communities near here they understand what high speed rail could do for Missouri as it relates to the speed and the efficacy of train transportation between Kansas City and St. Louis. Being able to clear those lines so our freight trains move more easily – that includes commerce. That’s money, thirty-one million in Missouri right [inaudible crosstalk] there.

Question: But what about all the wasted things that, that are constantly shown on the Internet about, you know, [inaudible] crossings and, and, you know [inaudible][crosstalk].

Senator McCaskill: Well, I’m not aware, I, I, do I think that there are mistakes made with how federal money spent? I spend a great deal of my time trying to focus on that. I can’t argue with you that there are, every single dime is spent appropriately. I will tell you that most economists believed at the time that our country was teetering and that stimulative spending, which is classic economic one-oh-one, was necessary by the government. And that’s why I voted for it. Because I believed it was gonna help us in the recovery. And if you look at the job numbers we lost three million jobs the last six months of the Bush administration and another three million jobs the first three months of the Obama administration. That has stopped. We cauterized that wound. [applause] It is not, we [inaudible] losing jobs like that now. [applause] And I believe the stimulus helped with that. [applause]

Question: We continue to lose jobs, and [crosstalk]…

Senator McCaskill: No. We’re gaining jobs.

Question: We continue to have four hundred fifty thousand new unemployment claims every week.

Senator McCaskill: We [inaudible crosstalk], there’s no question unemployment is still a major issue in this country. But we are net creating jobs now every month. It’s not a huge number, but we’re not losing seven hundred thousand a month like we were at the end of two thousand and eight and the beginning of two thousand nine. That was the crises we were trying to address.  I was making a good faith attempt to do what I thought, and here’s the interesting thing about this, you’re kind of darned if you do and darned if you don’t. Because when I run into people all the time they say, you know, you guys need to quite spending, what are you gonna do about jobs? You guys need to quite spending. What are you gonna do about jobs? Well, there’s only so much the government can and should do. I think what we did was the appropriate amount. I don’t think we can continue to do major stimulus spending going forward. Because there’s a point that you’ve gotta pivot and really begin to fasten down the ends in terms of how much spending’s going on. That’s why capping the growth, the amendment I’m supporting makes sense right now. We’re not cutting, because if you cut right now it could send us into another tailspin economically. But capping the growth is a reasonable approach in terms of the economics of it to do it. I think I talked about health care. And what was the final one?

Question: Financial reform.

Senator McCaskill: Financial reform. Um, it is a public bill. It is available for anybody to read. It exempts the community banks. There are only, the big national banks and two other banks in Missouri that are impacted by the new regulations, UMB and Commerce, because they’re over ten billion. And I gotta tell you the truth, I don’t ever want there to be another time where I have to cast a vote to put your money to save a major financial institution in order to save the financial health of this country. I don’t ever want to have to do that again. And this bill allows the government to go in like they do for other, like you do in a bankruptcy, like you do with a bank. If the local bank down here was about to go under the federal government can come in through the FDIC, they can make sure all the a, the deposits are protected, they can shut down the bank for one afternoon, a
nd reopen the bank on Monday [inaudible crosstalk], and by reorganizing the finances and it’s almost like a structured bankruptcy type process. We didn’t have the authority to do that with these giant mortgage bankers, these investment bankers. We couldn’t do that with Goldman-Sachs or AIG [crosstalk].

Question: [inaudible] that with Fannie or Freddie?

Senator McCaskill: You know what? Fannie and Freddie [inaudible], there will be, the main reason more wasn’t done with Fannie and Freddie when we did financial reg was the real estate community said, please don’t shut off Fannie and Freddie right now as we’re in the midst of this recovery. We are busy trying to make sure that our home prices don’t fall off the cliff, that we can still sell, and that is still a very needed source of funding for many banks loans, good bank loans, in this country, those guarantees. So, um, the, I mean, I know that, that, uh, some stations on the Internet, it’s all about Fannie and Freddie and financial reg was bad. But I honestly believe that we have taken a major step to keep the government from ever having to do that again.

Question: And there are bad things in it and I think you’re aware of that.

Senator McCaskill: Well, I, there, I’m, I, I, can’t say there are bad things in it. I’m not saying that any bill’s perfect [redacted] but I think it was the right thing to do to prevent bailouts in the future [applause] and I gotta [inaudible] now.

[….]

Question: I was wondering on the illegal immigration you keep saying that there’s no money in that for illegals. How do you prevent that when an illegal shows up at a hospital? [inaudible] Any politician says, we’re not paying and [inaudible] If they go to [inaudible] so the hospital is [inaudible] [crosstalk].

Senator McCaskill: It depends. He wants to know what happens to an illegal immigrant when he, when he goes to the hospital. It depends on what the present with. Honestly, if it’s life threatening I think most hospitals probably take in any human being that shows up that could die. [inaudible crosstalk] But [crosstalk]…

Question: But we still pay.

Senator McCaskill: I, I, there’s no question about that. And, but I’m not sure we’re ready in America to say that we need to let people die in emergency rooms.

Question: I agree absolutely.

Senator McCaskill: Yeah.

Question: [inaudible]

Senator McCaskill: Well, I will tell you that, uh, I have some personal experience with, uh, immigrant communities that, I mean, if you, there’s a priest up in St. Louis that’s very proud at, at, uh, St. Louis University, a Jesuit university in St. Louis, Father Biondi has just opened a clinic where they are trying to provide pro bono care for illegals that are in the St. Louis area because they can’t get health care anywhere else. And he’s doing it through donations at his church and throughout the St. Louis University community. That kinds of stuff goes on for, for medical care, um, but there’s no question there’s a price that the government pays, uh, for illegal immigrants that are in this country. [inaudible crosstalk] Direct and indirect. [inaudible crosstalk] Well, oh, I think what the reason it says that is people were saying that in the health care bill we didn’t prohibit illegal immigrants from getting the benefits of the health care bill. And that is strictly prohibited. They cannot buy insurance on the exchange. They cannot get subsidies to help them buy insurance on the exchange. That’s what that’s referring to, sir, it’s not, it’s not saying that somebody who presents dying at a, at a hospital is now gonna be told go die on the curb. It’s saying that within the provisions of the health care bill it strictly prohibit giving any government benefits [inaudible crosstalk] to the illegal immigrants.

Question: One other thing they, that I also hear talks about, uh, mainly the cost of [crosstalk]…

Senator McCaskill: Uh, huh.

Question:…Starting to watch TV, and it says people are getting injuries to [inaudible].

Senator McCaskill: And that will happen for another couple of years. That will happen because the, the, the exchanges don’t go into place until twenty-fourteen. So, now, what will begin to happen next year, this is good news. We’re gonna have medical loss ratios that they have to begin reporting on next year. So, insurance companies have been hiring a lot of people to figure out ways to deny your claim. They make more money the more claims they deny. They, they’re now gonna have to report those expenses, how much of every dollar they collect from their premium holders, from their insureds. And they’re gonna have to report how much of every dollar they spend on health care versus how many people did they deny health care, their advertising, or salaries. And if they spend more than eighty-five, eighty-five cents, they spend more than fifteen cents of every dollar on something other than health care they gotta rebate to their insureds, not to the government. It goes back to their policy holders.

Question: [inaudible]

Senator McCaskill: Well, I, I don’t think it’s realistic to think we’re gonna have a good handle on changing the cost curve until provisions of the bill come into effect. So it is gonna take a few years. And yes, it’s gonna be hard for all of you who don’t like the bill, it’s gonna give you a lot of righteous indignation the next couple of years ’cause you’re gonna say, well look, we’re not any better off. But for a lot of people, for kids who can stay on your insurance policies longer, for seniors who are gonna get help with the donut hole, for small businesses that are gonna get, for people who have preexisting conditions, there’s a program now in Missouri they can sign up for. There are some good things that’ll happen the next two years, but in terms of really getting a handle on the costs I’m the first to admit that’s not gonna happen in the next two years.

Question: [inaudible]

Senator McCaskill: Well, the, his [crosstalk]…

Question: [inaudible]

Senator McCaskill: Well, I, I think the frustrating part for me, sir, I understand what you’re saying, but I run into people all the time that have the wrong information about what is and isn’t in the bill. All the time. And I had a whole bunch of people say to me, you know, I’m not really sure what’s in it, but I just figure it’s better to vote no against it than anything else because if the government’s involved it’s probably a bad idea. So there’s some of that out there, too, in fairness. I mean, I bet if I started quizzing you on all of the things that are in the bill I think you’d probably wouldn’t get a hundred percent on the quiz.

Question: I don’t think there’s anybody in America who’d get a hundred percent on that quiz. [inaudible]

Senator McCaskill: Well, I, I don’t [inaudible] a hundred percent, but I think I’d get, I’d be put in B plus territory. I’m pretty sure I would.

Question: [inaudible]

Senator McCaskill: But that’s my job. I’m supposed to know it, right?

Question: Right.

Senator McCaskill: Thank you guys very, very much for being here. [applause] [inaudible] Thank you very much.

Claire McCaskill makes nice with the banks

09 Sunday May 2010

Posted by Michael Bersin in Uncategorized

≈ 1 Comment

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Claire McCaskill, financial reform, financial regulation, Kit Bond, missouri, S. 3217, S.AMDT.3733, Safe Banking Act

What do Claire McCaskill and Kit Bond have in common? They were both part of the 61 member majority in the Senate that voted down the SAFE Banking Act (S.AMDT. 3733).  This proposed amendment to Senator Dodd’s financial regulatory legislation (S. 3217) was intended to guarantee that there would be no more too-big-to-fail bank catastrophes in our future – a good thing, right?  

According to the Americans for Financial Reform (AFR), a consortium of 250 organizations concerned with financial regulatory reform, the Safe Banking Act would have imposed size limits that would have given:

… the largest banks three years to transform themselves into leaner, more sustainable institutions – while maximizing shareholder value and without sacrificing any of the economies of scale. Importantly, a hard cap will also prevent new financial services firms from growing too large in the future.

Michael Tomasky notes that this amendment “was considered by liberal activists and economists to be the element that would add real teeth”  to Dodd’s reform package.

I will be very interested to learn just why McCaskill joined with 27 Senate Democrats and all but three Republicans to defeat this legislation. Wasn’t it Claire “Carry Nation” McCaskill who postured for the cameras just a week or so ago, waving a metaphorical hatchet at the malefactors who head up the too-big-to-fail Goldman Sachs?  If the financiers’ bad behavior gets her so riled up, why did she vote against making it just that much more difficult for these greedy clowns and the rest of their wall street pals to make our economy go crash again?  How can she scold the big bankers and financiers and then turn around and help them to a great big victory?

Maybe McCaskill had good reasons – but I want to hear something other than hemming, hawing and the usual temporizing before I am convinced. Until then, I am afraid that Tomasky might be correct about what the behavior of timid centrists like McCaskill means:

This vote should demonstrate to liberals that the conditions for rapid change just don’t exist in this country and that part of the task is to create those conditions

 

Senator Claire McCaskill (D) on the Today Show – April 27, 2010

27 Tuesday Apr 2010

Posted by Michael Bersin in Uncategorized

≈ 2 Comments

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Claire McCaskill, financial regulation, Matt Lauer, media criticism, missouri, NBC Today Show, republican obstructionism, Senate

Senator Claire McCaskill was interviewed by Matt Lauer on the Today Show this morning:

Matt Lauer, NBC Today Show: …But basically it’s a temporary deal. You know where this is gonna end up, don’t you?

Senator Claire McCaskill (D): Well, that’s the point.  Uh, why? Why do we play these games? This is a serious problem. Let’s get to work. Uh, the, the ranking Republican on the Banking Committee said we know what happened, we know what we need to do to fix it, and we’ve worked on this for fifteen or sixteen months. This is just what’s been going on in Washington. The Republicans are banking on something. They’re banking that the American people won’t be paying close attention that they’re on the side of Wall Street and we’re trying to fix the problem.

Matt Lauer: Well, well, but you don’t expect them to stay even if you want to accuse them of being on the side of Wall Street. In an election year they can’t possibly benefit from that.

Senator McCaskill: I, I mean, I, who knows? Uh, this is beyond comprehension that they’re refusing to let us debate. That is nonsense. We just want to debate the bill. They wouldn’t even offer amendments in committee. They clearly are calculating that the public is so sick of all of us that if this thing fails because we’re in charge we’ll get blamed.

Matt Lauer: But.

Senator McCaskill: That’s the calculation…

…Matt Lauer: Let me move on to these hearings with these top Goldman Sachs, uh, executives, past and present. Senator, can, can these guys get a fair shake in front of this committee today? I mean, we know there is public outrage against Wall Street banks and any time you have outrage against individuals or a groups and they come before a Senate hearing it, it, the cold hard truth is lawmakers tend to do some grandstanding. They want to appear on the news looking tough. So will these guys be listened to today or are they just gonna get bashed?

Senator McCaskill: Well, I think they’ll be listened to. And, and I’m gonna go out of my way to make the point that this was lemming like behavior. I had one guy on Wall Street tell me, well, the only thing we were afraid of was whether or not we got a bad article in the Wall Street Journal. We weren’t afraid of regulators. Uh, so this was, you know, industry wide, this, this casino mentality where they were making up stuff to bet on. I mean, literally, that’s [crosstalk] what they were doing.

Matt Lauer: But, but let me ask you this. Have you already decided that Goldman Sachs is guilty of the fraud charges leveled against it by the SEC? Because you came out last night and said the SEC was in a coma before they acted on Goldman. Well, the way they acted on Goldman was to file fraud charges. Have you already been judge and jury here? Don’t they deserve a day in court?

Senator McCaskill: Absolutely. And the question here really, Matt, is not whether or not they have legally or illegally acted.  The question is, right and wrong.  Good old fashioned right and wrong. Moral or immoral. And I think the entire activities of Wall Street over the last five years as they created these more and more complex made up stuff to bet on, they were like the casino, but they had less regulation than Las Vegas.

Matt Lauer: Well, what it sound like what you’re saying is the question is not, is maybe they didn’t break the rules, maybe there weren’t rules in place to stop them from doing what they did.

Senator McCaskill: Which is exactly the point. That is exactly why today when we get another chance to vote on debating the appropriate amount of regulation on Wall Street I’m hoping the Republicans quit playing games and let us get to work….

Of all the stoopid questions: “…Have you already decided that Goldman Sachs is guilty of the fraud charges leveled against it by the SEC? Because you came out last night and said the SEC was in a coma before they acted on Goldman. Well, the way they acted on Goldman was to file fraud charges. Have you already been judge and jury here? Don’t they deserve a day in court?…”

Uh, the real question should be, when was the SEC asleep at the wheel? Under what administration? And what was that administration’s universal attitude toward regulation?

And Claire McCaskill has the message discipline to point out that the republicans are obstructing any discussion of any financial regulation. That would mean that the republicans are fine with things they way they were and the way they are now, right Matt?

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