Can Wall Street Be Regulated?

By now all the world knows is how big Wall Street is and how they can make or break an economy…..and recently they broke the whole damn thing!

And because they, Wall Street, was too big to fail….there is a growing attitude in Washington that these little turds need to be more accountable for their actions….something they are fighting tooth and nail to avoid…..

It all began (I think) with Sen, Cantwell…..as reported in the Huffington Post:

Morning Meeting, Dylan Ratigan brought on Senator Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) to discuss the ongoing attempts to achieve a measure of financial reform, so that the widespread systemic failures of “too big to fail” banking institutions that cratered the economy maybe don’t happen again. Cantwell went off: “The shenanigans just began here in Washington.” Cantwell continued, “What is moving through on the House side is a bill that supposedly has a new rule, but has so many loopholes that the loophole eats the rule. We want to say we have transparency and regulation, but it will continue to have loopholes.”At issue were some specific holes in the Defense against Wall Street’s Dark Arts. First: no government oversight of which derivatives get traded on open, transparent exchanges. Instead of the SEC or other regulators making decisions on what goes on the exchange, the exchange would be overseen by banks, who are strongly incentivized to keep derivatives off of exchanges, where they make less money.

And all the hoopla has not stopped there…..as reported in the WSJ:

A key House panel voted Wednesday to give government the power to break up large financial firms whose collapse might threaten the broader economy, despite aggressive lobbying by major financial institutions to kill the measure.The amendment illustrates how some lawmakers are willing to go beyond the authority sought by the White House — which stopped short of giving regulators power to break up healthy firms — in the redrawing of the financial world’s regulatory framework.

A divided House Financial Services Committee voted 38-29 to approve an amendment offered by Rep. Paul Kanjorski (D, Penn.) that would allow a council of regulators to determine whether factors including the size or interconnectedness of an individual firm pose “a grave threat to the United States.” Such a firm could be prohibited from merging with another firm or be required to sell business units or assets.

The amendment is part of a broader legislative overhaul of financial-sector rules pending in Congress. If enacted, the government would have the authority to act aggressively to deal with a systemically risky failure before problems become too unwieldy.

All in all a good start at controlling the runaway theft of Wall Street…but will it succeed?  Most likely it will not…..Wall Street has “friends” in Washington…all of whom are bought and paid for….these “friends” will not allow Wall Street to lose any of their clout…..

The beast of Wall Street has been allowed to run free for way too long to try and domesticate it now……it may get those trying some votes back home but it will do little to control or tame Wall Street….