Is The Senate Letting Wall Street Get Off Too Lightly? What A Silly Question!

If you notice things like this, you might have detected that we didn't run anything yesterday about the passage of the Senate's version of H.R.4173, the Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. That's because we've been trying to grapple with what it seems to be accomplishing and what is isn't even going to try to accomplish, how it differs from the House version and... well, what it all means. Obviously with the financial industry having spent more money than any other sector on lobbying ($4,052,217,962 since 1998), not to mention another $1,395,315,634 in the thinly-veiled bribes we conveniently refer to as "campaign contributions," the financial sector isn't allowing the boys and girls they own to get too wild, even if they did nearly bankrupt the country with their unregulated greed and avarice.

OK, so first the vote late Thursday evening, passing the bill 59-39, hot on the heels of the cloture vote shutting down the Republican Party filibuster earlier in the day, which passed 60-40. Democrats Russ Feingold and Maria Cantwell joined the GOP filibuster and voted against the bill (more on that below). Republicans Scott Brown (MA- not the 41st vote after all), Susan Collins (ME) and Olympia Snowe (ME) voted with the Democrats in the interests of consumers and Main Street and against the Wall Street banksters, whose interests Republicans had been seeking so assiduously to defend. Even fully-owned subsidiaries of the financial sector like Ben Nelson, Evan Bayh, Mary Landrieu, Blanche Lincoln and Joe Lieberman voted with the Democrats, making me suspicious that there must be something really wrong with the bill. (Petrified that recent polls show him losing to Roxanne Conlin in Iowa in November, Chuck Grassley, stuck with his reactionary party's filibuster but at the last second crossed the aisle and voted for the final bill. More on that below too.)

Yesterday Paul Krugman said it could have been better and it surely could have been a lot worse, and thank the selfish and corrupt banksters, particularly Lloyd Blankfein, for providing "scandals at just the right time."

What’s good? Resolution authority, which was sorely lacking last year; consumer protection; derivatives traded through clearinghouses; ratings reform, thanks to Al Franken; tighter capital standards for big players, although with too much discretion to regulators.

What’s missing? Hard leverage limits; size caps; not much in the way of restoring Glass-Steagall. If you think that too big to fail is the core problem, it’s disappointing; if you think that shadow banking is the core, as I do, not too bad.

Feingold's excuse sounded a little thin and hollow to me, in case you've noticed that Blue America isn't raising contributions for him this year: "The bill," he said, "does not eliminate the risk to our economy posed by ‘too big to fail’ financial firms, nor does it restore the proven safeguards established after the Great Depression, which separated Main Street banks from big Wall Street firms and are essential to preventing another economic meltdown. The recent financial crisis triggered the nation’s worst recession since the Great Depression. The bill should have included reforms to prevent another such crisis. Regrettably, it did not.”

Is he right? Sure. Is he on the same planet the rest of us are on? Judge for yourself. One of his Wisconsin constituents, Dave Sherbula who sometimes writes for us about Paul Ryan, seems fit to be tied-- but doesn't disagree with Feingold's stand:

I am disgusted.

The whores in the Senate (not one Republican voted to end usury and 21 Democrats went along with them) did nothing to cap interest rates on credit cards. Think about that for a minute. The US Government bailed out a bunch of criminal bankers and gave them practically no interest loans. The bankers devastated of our economy. Yet we let them charge usury-as rates on credit cards. People are struggling. Credit cards can keep you afloat for while. 

It get's better. The credit rating agencies score you on the percentage of your credit line you use.  So they are lowering peoples credit ratings who have an unblemished record of payments because the banksters cut your credit line. Because the banksters trashed our economy by their incompetence. But the US Government opens the Fed window to criminal bankers who are insolvent and give practically no interest loans.

I used to be against the death penalty. I changed my mind. I think it has a place in financial crimes that destroy so many lives. Large banks are weapons of mass destruction.

Politicians who enable them need to be held to the same standard as someone who supported a terrorist organization.

ThinkProgress has a good side-by-side comparison of the House and Senate version, which will now have to be reconciled-- and where the bankster lobbyists are now trying to work their magic. Is the bill likely to get better in reconcilation? No chance. Is it likely to get worse? I'd bet on it-- and I'd bet big. Here's their chart on the major differences:


Yesterday Roxanne Conley addressed Grassley's confused role in this whole process and how her campaign has forced him to veer away from his own reactionary instincts and from those of his deranged party. "We have turned up the heat on Senator Grassley.  Because of our efforts Senator Grassley reversed his five previous votes to block debate on Wall Street reform and supported the final measure. I am so proud of our grassroots supporters who mobilized online and across the state and reached out to Senator Grassley to get him to switch his position.  While this does not make amends for Senator Grassley's $700 billion bailout of Wall Street or the fact that he created the atmosphere that allowed for recklessness and greed to wreak havoc on nation's economic system, I am pleased with his vote today."

North Carolina Secretary of State Elaine Marshall has had similar types of successes in getting Richard Burr to vote against the Republican Party line from time to time. But not that time. Last night she pointed out that his "vote against financial reform is a slap in the face to anyone who has lost a job, watched their savings shrink or been harmed in this recession. He has once again shown that his allegiance lies with Wall Street banks, not the people of North Carolina. It's time to send Richard Burr home."

I'd like to leave the discussion today with some remarks from the Senate's most trustworthy member on anything to do with the banking business, Bernie Sanders (I-VT):

“As a result of the greed, recklessness and illegal behavior of Wall Street, this country was plunged into a horrendous recession. While this bill does not go as far as I would like, it is a strong beginning in the effort to reregulate huge financial institutions and to bring transparency to their often nefarious activities.
 
“I am especially proud that in this bill there is a major provision I authored which, for the first time, will lift the veil of secrecy at the Federal Reserve and give the American people an understanding of where trillions of their tax dollars went in the Wall Street bailout.

“I am disappointed that we could not garner the necessary votes to lower interest rates on credit cards or to begin the process of breaking up the largest financial institutions in this country which are the cause of so many of our problems. I intend to continue that effort until we succeed.”