A REAL banking reform has been introduced in the senate

Now let's see who's the enemy of the people and who's not.

The SAFE BANKING ACT

Senators Kaufman, Casey, Merkley, Whitehouse and Harkin (along with others who may pile on) have introduced a 20-page amendment to actually address "too big to fail."Here's the bill

It is refreshingly simple legislation - 20 pages of common sense.

It limits firm size to 2% of GDP including off-balance sheet vehicles for banks, 3% for non-banks, and forces divestiture of overages. It also requires reporting and testimony before Congress if regulators fail to promptly address violations.

In addition it places a hard cap of 10% of deposits in any one institution (a limit that already exists by the way, but has been wantonly violated by The Fed allowing mergers during the crisis that breached the limits - and yet there has been no requirement to divest.)

This would place a balance-sheet limit of about $280 billion on a bank.

This would put an instantaneous full-stop to the outrageous obscenity called "Wells Fargo", which has $1.7 trillion in off-balance sheet "assets", not to mention the other "big banks" that have hundreds of billions off sheet as well.

We now get to find out who is really for Wall Street reform - and who needs to lose their seat in The Senate.

Those who vote against it or VETO it, is an enemy of the people IMO.

After this pass, time to do away with the FED.

[edit on 29-4-2010 by Vitchilo]

Anything on bailouts for the "too big to fail" and where in the bill it stops more bailouts.

If this bill doesn't do any of that I no good.

reply to post by marg6043


Please don't think I'm quoting our President when I say that we should not let the search for the perfect bill be an impediment to enacting a good one. Though there is nothing in the bill that would prevent future bailouts, it would decrease the likelihood of having to bail a financial institution out by forcing them to split up into "small enough to fail" institutions. Glaas-Steagal was a 17 page build that kept our financial system in pretty decent shape for almost three quarters of a century until it began to be dismantled in the 80's with it's final repeal in the late nineties.

Don't think for a second I'm for any of the bailouts over the past couple of years, but I'm not sure we should enshrine "no bailout under any circumstance" into law. I can envision some situations where after we have comprehensive financial reform it may be both fiscally and politically responsible to bail someone out. Say for example a US financial institution that did proper Due Diligence gets snookered by, for arguments sake, let's say a Chi-com concern and it's going to cost thousands of US jobs.

I think the main argument you will see against this is the tired argument that it will drive financial companies out of the US. I say good. That way, when these institutions over lever and blow themselves up (which recent and not so recent history shows that they invariably and eventually will) , some other countries taxpayers will have to bail them out.

This is a good bill and and I will be contacting my Senators and Representative tomorrow to tell them that I will not be able to support them in any future election unless they support this bill.

reply to post by Vitchilo


Wow.. that's one serious bill.. it doesn't stand a chance in hell of passing.. but still, pretty cool to see people trying.

It's a good first step.

Next, after moving away from "too big to fail," we have to start contemplating moving away from "too big for JAIL!"

reply to post by jefwane


Don't worry I know where you stand for with the post.

Most Americans are against bailouts, is just that our corporate government doesn't listen to voters anymore.

BTW "sorry for the missing words in my post I am having some problems with my keyboard and the speed it seems that my fingers are too fast for my keyboard and I already try to change the settings but is no working".

Now on the topic, when Wal-Street keeps pouring millions in Congress to stop any reform while having their hoards of lobbyist redacting their own version of reform we should know by now that nothing is coming out of congress at all, at least anything that is for the benefit of main street.

reply to post by marg6043


You guys in the U.S first need a reform and regulation against the pesky corporated lobbyists.

Then you can reform both the finance system and the health care system to what you the people would like to have.

You have to take these Corporated lobbyists out of the equation first!

How do you get rid of them?

Originally posted by Chevalerous
reply to post by marg6043

 

You guys in the U.S first need a reform and regulation against the pesky corporated lobbyists.

Then you can reform both the finance system and the health care system to what you the people would like to have.

You have to take these Corporated lobbyists out of the equation first!

How do you get rid of them?

AGREED!!! Even if this bill passes, and I give it about a snowball's chance in hell, it will be eviscerated over the next several years by corporate lobbyists that will have ammendments added to ubsequent bills that water this one down to non-existance.

As far as geting rid of them??? I have my ideas on how that could/should happen!

Originally posted by kozmo

As far as geting rid of them??? I have my ideas on how that could/should happen!

Haha! yeah! but I mean, is there actually a legal way to get rid of them or will your system always be corrupted by these people?

I can't see that this would happen due to voting these people out who are defending them - because these political representatives are actually getting paid by them.

It's a Catch 22 no-win situation! - really absurd and crazy, if you think about it!

Oh man! we're living in a worldwide surreal Kafka nightmare!