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House Set for Final Vote on Wall Street Regulation Bill
WASHINGTON - House of Representatives Democrats head into the final stretch on a long-awaited Wall Street regulation bill with two crucial and contentious votes looming before they can declare victory on one of President Barack Obama's legislative priorities.
The sweeping regulatory overhaul aims to address the myriad conditions that led to last year's financial crisis.
Test votes during two days of debate indicate that Democratic support for the underlying legislation will hold in final passage. Prodded by moderates, however, nearly half of the Democrats teamed up with Republicans late Thursday to loosen restrictions on derivatives and reject tougher regulations.
Before a final vote Friday, House members will have to decide whether to support an amendment to kill a proposed Consumer Financial Protection Agency, one of the central features of the legislation. The agency would consolidate consumer lending regulations and enforcement that is now split up among several banking regulators.
Eliminating the consumer agency could cost the overall bill support from liberals.
Democratic leaders were also seeking to revive legislation that would let bankruptcy judges rewrite mortgages to lower homeowners' monthly payments. A coalition of banking organizations on Thursday sent lawmakers a letter urging them to vote against the amendment. The House previously passed bankruptcy-mortgage legislation, but it failed in the Senate.
Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi applauded progress on the bill Thursday.
"American families will no longer be at the mercy of the Wall Street in terms of their jobs, their homes, their pension security, the education of their children," said Pelosi.
Later that evening, scores of Democrats strayed and voted with Republicans on amendments that eroded the reach of proposed regulations on complex derivatives trades.
Democratic attempts to toughen the legislation failed.
Though not major setbacks, the votes illustrated the difficulties facing House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank and the Obama administration as they seek to pass the most ambitious rewrite of financial regulations since the New Deal.
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has been an aggressive opponent of the legislation, running television ads against the proposed consumer agency and pressuring lawmakers to vote to eliminate it and to ease the derivatives regulations.
The legislation still imposes restrictions on derivatives, aiming to prevent manipulation in and bring transparency to a $600 trillion global market. An amendment by New York Democrat Scott Murphy, adopted 304-124 Thursday night, exempted businesses that trade in derivatives, not as financial speculators, but to hedge against market fluctuations such as currency rates or gasoline prices. The amendment also provided an exception for businesses that are not considered too big to be a risk to the financial system.
A Democratic effort to make more companies subject to derivatives regulation failed 279-150.
For Democrats, the votes split along turf lines. All but a few of the Democrats on the House Agriculture Committee voted for the broader exception. The Agriculture Committee oversees commodities trading and had recommended less restrictive derivatives rules, but the final bill did not include them.
On Wednesday, pro-business Democrats succeeded in making it harder for states to enforce their own consumer protection rules on national banks. Under a compromise struck with Democratic leaders and Treasury officials, states would not be able to pre-empt federal consumer laws if the state law "materially" interferes with the business of banks.
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nearly half of the Democrats teamed up with Republicans late Thursday to loosen restrictions on derivatives and reject tougher regulations
these people are counting on people not understanding why we crashed, and why the bailout was needed.
The legislation still imposes restrictions on derivatives, aiming to prevent manipulation in and bring transparency to a $600 trillion global market.
600 trillion$ represents 10X the world GDP. the people trading in these are pure fraudsters.
that's 10X much more dangerous than the US debt at 1 year of GDP.
the whole operation needs to be outlawed. these people are trading your and my an everyone elses futures.
derivatives at their core are nothing more than individual entities lending themselves money they do not have. it's like walking into a casino with your own chips that you made in your basement and being allowed to play
-------------------- Don't envy the happiness of those who live in a fool's paradise. Posts: 36378 | From: USA | Registered: Sep 2003
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We've seen it before and it ends with a whole lot of paupers.
quote: Tulip mania or tulipomania (Dutch names include: tulpenmanie, tulpomanie, tulpenwoede, tulpengekte and bollengekte) was a period in the Dutch Golden Age during which contract prices for bulbs of the recently introduced tulip reached extraordinarily high levels and then suddenly collapsed.[2] At the peak of tulip mania in February 1637, tulip contracts sold for more than 10 times the annual income of a skilled craftsman. It is generally considered the first recorded speculative bubble (or economic bubble).[3] The term "tulip mania" is now often used metaphorically to refer to any large economic bubble (when asset prices deviate from intrinsic values).[4]
-------------------- No longer eligible for government service due to lack of tax issues. Posts: 5178 | From: Up North | Registered: Dec 2005
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