The "Other Reason" Why the U.S. is Not Regulating Wall Street

These are some segments from an article on Global Research entitled The "Other Reason" Why the U.S. is Not Regulating Wall Street: Financial Giants Overshadow Governments:

And everyone knows that the White House and Congress - while talking about cracking down on Wall Street with strict regulation - have actually watered down some of the most important protections that were in place.

For example, Senator Cantwell says that the new derivatives legislation is weaker than the old regulation. And leading credit default swap expert Satyajit Das says that the new credit default swap regulations not only won't help stabilize the economy, they might actually help to destabilize it.

But the U.S. is not being sold out in a vacuum.

On March 1, 1999, countries accounting for more than 90 per cent of the global financial services market signed onto the World Trade Organization's Financial Services Agreement (FSA). By signing the FSA, they committed to deregulate their financial markets.

For example, by signing the FSA, the U.S. agreed not to break up too big to fails. The U.S. also promised to repeal Glass-Steagall, and did so 8 months after signing the FSA.

Indeed, in signing the FSA and other WTO agreements, the U.S. has legally bound itself as follows:

• No new regulation: The United States agreed to a “standstill provision” that requires that we not create new regulations (or reverse liberalization) for the list of financial services bound to comply with WTO rules. Given that the United States has made broad WTO financial services commitments – and thus is forbidden by this provision from imposing new regulations in these many areas – this provision seriously limits the policy [options] available to address the current crisis.

• Removal of regulation: The United States even agreed to try to even eliminate domestic financial service regulatory policies that meet GATS [i.e. General Agreement on Trade in Services] rules, but that may still “adversely affect the ability of financial service suppliers of any other (WTO) Member to operate, compete, or enter” the market.

• No bans on new financial service “products”: The United States is also bound to ensure that foreign financial service suppliers are permitted “to offer in its territory any new financial service,” a direct conflict with the various proposals to limit various risky investment instruments, such as certain types of derivatives.

• Certain forms of regulation banned outright: The United States agreed that it would not set limits on the size, corporate form or other characteristics of foreign firms in the broad array of financial services it signed up to WTO strictures ...

• Treating foreign and domestic firms alike is not sufficient: The GATS market-access limits on U.S. domestic regulation apply in absolute terms; that is to say, even if a policy applies to domestic and foreign firms alike, if it goes beyond what WTO rules permit, it is forbidden. And, forms of regulation not outright banned by the market-access requirements must not inadvertently “modify the conditions of competition in favor of services or service suppliers” of the United States, even if they apply identically to foreign and domestic firms.

In other words, the problem isn't just that Congress and the White House have sold out to the Wall Street giants.

Will the American people stand up and demand that the WTO deregulatory scheme be rolled back?

Or will we continue to let the financial giants destroy our country through buying and selling politicians (with the help of the Supreme Court) and forcing us into more and more draconian WTO treaties which destroy our sovereignty altogether?

Many people assume that they just have to hang in there until things improve. But the powers-that-be are grabbing more and more power and - unless we stand up to them - they will take it all.

As highly-regarded economist Michael Hudson, Distinguished Research Professor at the University of Missouri, Kansas City, who has advised the U.S., Canadian, Mexican and Latvian governments as well as the United Nations Institute for Training and Research, and who is a former Wall Street economist at Chase Manhattan Bank who helped establish the world’s first sovereign debt fund) said:

"You have to realize that what they’re trying to do is to roll back the Enlightenment, roll back the moral philosophy and social values of classical political economy and its culmination in Progressive Era legislation, as well as the New Deal institutions. They’re not trying to make the economy more equal, and they’re not trying to share power. Their greed is (as Aristotle noted) infinite. So what you find to be a violation of traditional values is a re-assertion of pre-industrial, feudal values. The economy is being set back on the road to debt peonage. The Road to Serfdom is not government sponsorship of economic progress and rising living standards, it’s the dismantling of government, the dissolution of regulatory agencies, to create a new feudal-type elite."

And Foreign Policy magazine ran an article entitled "The Next Big Thing: Neomedievalism", arguing that the power of nations is declining, and being replaced by corporations, wealthy individuals, the sovereign wealth funds of monarchs, and city-regions.

Does anyone remember the Battle of Seattle?



What do you all think?

[edit on 9-2-2010 by Someone336]

does it really matter when the new you are presented is done in a fashion to trigger an up or down movement in a market controlled. if the market is an extension of the government is it not a good thing for a check and balance to naturally play out?if your asking what i think; i have to ask, are your postulations from what perspective?you are implying the wto seattle "riot" is an occurrence that s to occur to "citizens"; or are you posturing for the sake of a few cents on the trade of shares you feel entitled?if the government does not step up as an equal or greater in a check they can be chosen as a mate or disregarded as a pawn.are you insinuating global governance of money by entities outside of government is a process that can be done at the level of "wall street"; and are you serious?

reply to post by Ausar

if the market is an extension of the government is it not a good thing for a check and balance to naturally play out?

A check and balance is needed. I don't believe in government control of the market, just strict regulation to prevent the towering monstrosities that bilk the taxpayer for all they are worth. I think what needs to be done is something even more radical than the 1911 break up of Standard Oil: these corporations have to be shattered into a thousand splinters. If we want to take our world back from the CEOs and board rooms we must level the playing field.

As per Battle of Seattle, perhaps I should have made myself a bit more clear. I strongly advocate non-violent Direct Action as resistance, but I was trying to make a point that at one time many more were aware of the crime spree being committed by the TWO, the IMF and the World Bank. Ten years on and nobody cares, everybody's too distracted and divided into left-right paradigms to look at what's actually happening.

are you insinuating global governance of money by entities outside of government is a process that can be done at the level of "wall street"

Yes. Wall Street has funded Hitler, the Bolshevik revolution, buddied up with Mussolini, acted as the driving force behind the Federal Reserve and were key players in the establishment of the IMF, World Bank and WTO. The Trilateral Commission and G30 grew out of it. Together with the other financial capitals of the world, such as the City of London, Mumbai, etc, it forms a blanket of financial control over the entire world.

Excellent work Someone336. VERY important info. S&F.

...and it just so happens that I need this stuff for a project I'm working on. Thank you! ...I promise you'll get linked, credited, etc.

reply to post by soficrow


Hey, glad I could help! But I am just relaying something else I had read, after all.

so you have done work to come to the conclusion that wallstreet has done these things but have you worked out what wall street is?