Day: July 1, 2010

Scott Brown–New Style Politician

From the VOMITORIUM

Remember the day the Scott Brown won the special election in Massachusetts to replace the dead Sen. Kennedy?  He was the Tea Party candidate that was gonna change Washington….he was this new style politician….a true moderate that would do what he promised and in turn would change the way business was being done in Washington….

The media was all a flutter with his election to the Senate, especially the conservatives on the air….he was a new God to be worshiped because he bucked the system and won the election……

That was then…this is now!

When Massachusetts Republican Scott Brown addressed supporters after his upset victory in January, he declared there would be “no more closed-door meetings or back-room deals by an out-of-touch party leadership.”

After private talks with Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, Senate Banking Committee Chairman Chris Dodd and other top Democrats, Brown scored a series of exemptions from the “Volcker rule” — which would bar certain forms of proprietary trading — a provision pushed by big Massachusetts banks and financial firms, including State Street Corp. and Mass Mutual.Brown insists the changes he sought that would benefit Massachusetts firms were also national in scope, so they would not amount to a carve-out for a special interest back home.

More than a few of his colleagues grumbled at the freshman Republican’s outsize influence over the final stages of the financial reform talks. And several suggested that Brown’s deal making wasn’t very different from what Republicans had lampooned during the health care debate.

A new style politician?  Kinda smells like the same fecal matter that is ALWAYS present in Washington….there you go……change you can believe in….and you were easy enough to believe the crap….happy now?
I have yet to hear the media cover this….that would mean that they would have to admit that they were WRONG…..about Brown and his politics…..and about the vague promise of change…..

Hoorah! We Have FinReg!

Well….sort of…..it is very very close…..

In the beginning there were these gamblers who made lots of money….but then they held a gun to their own heads and pulled the trigger….too bad it was a squirt gun……then they approached the government and made the case for if they went down the toilet they would take the whole economy with them…there gambling debts were quickly covered and the taxpayer got kicked in the ass…..by then the US Congress was up in arms at the way the people were treated (good political kabuki)  with fake concern as make up and the vow that something like this would never happen again and they set off to make legislation of prevention…..they worked and they worked (about 3 days a week for months) until they had the perfect bill on financial regulation…..

Now the rest of the story…….

The Obama administration’s proposal to ban banks from proprietary trading, nicknamed the Volcker rule after former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker, was softened by Senate negotiators.

Banks will be allowed to invest in private-equity and hedge funds, though they will be limited to providing no more than 3 percent of the fund’s capital. Banks also can’t invest more than 3 percent of their Tier 1 capital.

The change alters language in a bill the Senate approved in May, which would have barred banks from sponsoring or investing in private-equity and hedge funds. Lawmakers offered the modification to appease Senator Scott Brown, a Massachusetts Republican who was concerned the ban would harm Boston-based State Street Corp. He was one of four Republicans to break party ranks and vote for the Senate bill.

The legislation defines proprietary trading as engaging as a principal for a trading account of a bank or non-bank financial company supervised by the Fed “in any transaction to purchase or sell, or otherwise acquire or dispose of, any security, any derivative, any contract of sale of a commodity for future delivery, any option on any such security, derivative or contract, or any other security or financial instrument” that regulators designate through rule-writing.

Negotiators also agreed to give regulators less say than previously proposed to define a ban on proprietary trading. Senate Banking Committee Chairman Christopher Dodd, a Connecticut Democrat, backed a change offered by Democratic Senators Jeff Merkley of Oregon and Carl Levin of Michigan that “more clearly defines the limits on proprietary trading” by writing the ban into the legislation. The earlier Senate bill would have let regulators write it.

Still does not seem to eliminate the Too Big Too Fail, and gambling is still allowed with taxpayer money, just to mention the ones that I personally think were a necessity for any reform bill…..and personally I am sick of the bullsh*t saying that it is not perfect but it is step in the right direction…..I know and you will soon know that that is just political speak….meaning they have done all they WILL do to reform the financial sector…..

So my friends, grab your ass with both hands….this WILL happen again!…..and I will be the first to say  “I TOLD YOU SO!”