Financial Reform News

Date Title
Mar 09, 2010 Fed’s Reach May Be Curbed Under Plan - Sewell Chan, New York Times

Summary: "Several high-ranking members of the Senate Banking Committee have reached a tentative consensus on a plan that would strip the Federal Reserve of regulatory powers over all but the very largest banks, those with more than $100 billion in assets, people briefed on the negotiations said on Monday night."
Mar 09, 2010 Column: Let's Not Repeat Sad History Will U.S. Leaders Restore Sanity to the Economy? - Errol Louis, New York Daily News

Summary: "America is still sorting through the wreckage of the mortgage crisis, and already congressional Democrats have forgotten the main lesson of that debacle: Lax financial regulation sets the stage for economic catastrophe."
Mar 09, 2010 Editorial: Keep an eye on banks - Philadelphia Enquirer Editorial Board

Summary: "It's been more than a year since Wall Street collapsed, and Congress is finally moving forward with reforms to prevent more abuses in the banking industry."
Mar 09, 2010 SEC Economist Leaving Amid Short-Sale Rules Conflict - Jesse Westbrook, Bloomberg

Summary: "The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s top economist is leaving the agency after Chairman Mary Schapiro merged his office with another and passed short- selling rules that hedge funds said ignored financial analysis."
Mar 09, 2010 Op-ed:Effective credit-rating reform needs balance - Phil Papoojian, Providence Journal

Summary: "People in Congress are working on far-reaching legislation to regulate the financial-services industry in hopes of preventing a repeat of the financial turmoil we saw over the last two years."
Mar 09, 2010 Column: No tea for Wall Street in fall elections - David Weidner, MarketWatch

Summary: "Tea party? When it comes to elections, Wall Street traditionally has but one party of choice: the winning party."
Mar 09, 2010 Biz Groups Appear To Be Close To Win On Governance - Bill Swindell, National Journal

Summary: "Business interests appear to have the upper hand in their quest to strip corporate governance language from a revamp of the nation's financial regulatory system, a priority for Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., who has spearheaded the populist effort."
Mar 09, 2010 Showdown looms for financial reform - Victoria McGrane, Politico

Summary: "If there were any question that the stakes are high for financial reform, consider this: Even the Defense Department is getting into the fight."
Mar 09, 2010 Column: So Where’s Consumer Protection? - Andrew Ross Sorkin, New York Times

Summary: "The fate of the proposed consumer protection agency remains the biggest question mark in the proposed overhaul of the finance industry, The New York Times’s Andrew Ross Sorkin writes in his latest DealBook column."
Mar 08, 2010 Critics hit Senate tilt toward Fed status quo - Kevin Drawbaugh, Reuters

Summary: "Senators leaning toward preserving the Federal Reserve's role as a bank supervisor and consumer protection regulator came under criticism on Monday from academics and consumer activists."
Mar 08, 2010 Senators wrangle over OTC derivatives exemptions - Rachelle Younglai, Reuters

Summary: "Republican and Democratic senators are at odds over which financial players should be exempt from complying with proposed rules designed to shed light on the $450 trillion over-the-counter derivatives market."
Mar 08, 2010 Federal Reserve may retain power in banking reform - Ronald D. Orol, MarketWatch

Summary: "Financial institutions that have more than $100 billion in assets would continue to be overseen by the Federal Reserve, based on a legislative proposal under consideration in the Senate, according to people familiar with negotiations on broad bank-reform legislation."
Mar 08, 2010 Battle Inside Fed Rages Over Bank Regulation - Jon Hilsenrath, Wall Street Journal

Summary: "The worst of the banking crisis may be long over, but the political contest over the Federal Reserve is entering a crucial phase in which its personality and role will almost certainly be redefined."
Mar 08, 2010 Column: Sure-Fire Crowd Pleaser: Reining in Wall Street - John Harwood, New York Times

Summary: "For President Obama and Congressional Democrats, public opinion this past year has mostly gone in the wrong direction — on his job performance, on health care and economic stimulus, on midterm elections."
Mar 08, 2010 Key vacancies give Obama a chance to steer financial reform - Binyamin Appelbaum, Washington Post

Summary: "President Obama has the chance during his first term to appoint leaders for each of the federal agencies that oversee banks, an important opportunity to reshape the government's approach to regulation even as the White House struggles to push structural reforms through the Senate."
Mar 08, 2010 Big bank oversight to stay with Fed - Tom Braithwaite, Financial Times

Summary: "Banks with more than $100bn of assets will be overseen by the US Federal Reserve under a regulatory reform plan that represents a partial victory for the central bank after months of attacks in Congress."
Mar 07, 2010 Financial reform bill likely to lose measure to protect Main Street investors - Tomoeh Murakami Tse, Washington Post

Summary: "When financial reform legislation finally lands on the Senate floor, a provision that advocates call the single most important item for Main Street investors will probably have been banished from the ponderous bill."
Mar 06, 2010 Consumer Groups Urge Regulation of Nonbank Financial Institutions - Sewell Chan, New York Times

Summary: "While much of the Congressional debate over consumer financial protection has focused on banks, lawmakers have been grappling behind the scenes over whether and how to regulate payday lenders, debt collectors, check-cashing outlets, title and installment lenders and even pawnbrokers."
Mar 06, 2010 Autonomy of Consumer Watchdog Is in Dispute - Andrew Martin and Sewell Chan, New York Times

Summary: "As Congress and the White House battle over the outlines of an agency to protect consumers from deceptive financial practices, their biggest hurdle is figuring out how independent it should be."
Mar 06, 2010 Two Visions Of Banking's Future - John Maggs, National Journal Magazine

Summary: "If financial regulatory reform becomes law, what then? No one can know whether the new rules taking shape in Congress will go far enough to prevent a repeat of the last crisis. Will the jumble of hybrid agencies proposed to enforce those rules get off the ground and function properly?"