Anyone reading our site knows that Financial Reform is nowhere and what has been passed can be described from Swiss cheese to who let the dogs out.
Well, well, us in the peanut gallery are not alone in that assessment and a bunch of experts are putting forth detailed policy proposals on what should happen. They are on a web 2.0 media campaign to get your attention and I will assume your support too.
A conference, put on by the Roosevelt Institute was held this week. The blog New Deal 2.0 has a host of videos, including the entire conference. They really are going all out on the web 2.0 stuff and even have a website, Make Markets Be Markets, just for their policy proposals and to get real financial reform.
Headed by Robert Johnson, with contributors including Elizabeth Warren and Simon Johnson, many of the policy proposals you've already read about here. The point is more political, we cannot get any financial reform. Now we have uber-experts, acting in concert, pushing for real legislation. Even Joseph Stiglitz has gotten into the act. This effort is assuredly something we need to help promote.
This group is also saying without financial reform, Economic Armageddon 2.0 will assuredly happen. We've been saying that repeatedly, and have backed up that conclusion with charts, graphs, statistics and swear words.
Their entire paper presentation is on the Make Markets Be Markets site, including policy components which must be enacted into law.
I recommend reading the resolution chapter and the derivatives reforms chapter. You'll need to skip to the bottom of each section to find the policy recommendations. I am not so convinced on the policies for Glass Steagall 2.0 and believe Volcker is more on this, along with Senate Bernie Sanders in terms of simply break up those financial institutions who impose systemic risk and isolate like a bad disease those elements which create the greatest contagion (derivatives).
That said, the point is to read their comprehensive (God, I hate that term, kiss of legislative death) reform proposals and most of all, you need to demand we get real financial reform. One final note, Stiglitz et. al are firmly pointing to derivatives as the area most needing regulation.
In my opinion, their derivatives reforms do not go far enough and I did not see a mention to regulate the mathematical models themselves as well as the technology. This is not good. Just because somethin's wrapped up in a big ole' nasty mathematical equation or requires someone to grasp Big O notation, don't make it less of a fraud and scam.
The entire conference seems to be on Ustream and the audio is full of distortions (hello, you can post process the audio and remove some of that with a little DSP magic folks!). If you have an EQ, noise filter, and settings you can improve it upon playback.
Here's the first one:
Comments
Thank you for posting about "Make Markets be Markets"
I stumbled on it two days ago, and have not had time to actually sit and read any of the presentations yet. From skimming the site, looks like there's lots of important and useful material there!
And, next month there is the Levy Institute's Hyman Minsky conference!
CFPA - Dodd trying to move it under the Fed
I mean Senator Chris Dodd, this is one of the problems, you get a lame committee chair who blocks anything real, he's running around claiming he needs "bipartisanship" and he "has to get it out of committee" and that's why he is doing a real absurdity and claiming to support a Consumer Financial Protection Agency yet magically put it under the Federal Reserve's authority.
What crap. The Fed already has authority for consumer protection and we see how well they have done!
A lot of focus is on the CFPA, it's been under attack by the Banksters since day one, they do not want any consumer protections for any financial products.
That said, to me the real bomb, the real threat is derivatives. I do believe this market has grown, not shrank since 2008 and they are still trying fictional mathematical models with fictional pricing and not way to even validate a CDO (with it's derivatives). I think because it's such gobblygook, few understand them and eyeballs glaze over on how to reform them. There's also a hell of a lot of real money being made on these new virtual casino chips.
But, it's really clear from the House Bill, financial sector lobbyists are still running this show.
This is a crime. It's kind of appropriate too that a think tank or whatever they are is called the Roosevelt Institute. Think about how fast FDR and Congress moved on financial reform and it's only because their great work was torn to shreds that we're in this mess in the first place.
someone is missing scale in criticism of Roosevelt Institute
Believe this or not, this Rolfe Winkler Reuters criticism on costs was front paged on HuffPo. Yet this is astounding, it's taking about "costs" of financial reform and this has absolutely no scale to it.
The costs of doing nothing have us on the hook for $23.7 trillion dollars in liability! The costs, along with some other stuff, has us looking at a budget deficit of 90% GDP by 2020!!
Also, I could just scream at the CBO for writing such a letter claiming small business would be hurt by a way too low Zombie Bank fee...
Small Businesses already have shown, it's not the lending that's hurting them, it's demand.
Here we go, I do hope the Roosevelt Institute tackles costs, especially the costs of doing nothing!@@&*)!