banking

The banksters of Wall Street get a little help from their friends in Congress

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Wall.StreetLast week, the GOP bill to delay Dodd-Frank failed on a procedural vote, with Democrat Kyrsten Sinema joining Arizona’s GOP Caucus to lift regulations on the banksters of Wall Street who so badly want to return to speculative casino capitalism.

Well, Kyrsten Sinema repeated her sin yesterday in helping the GOP to pass the bill drafted by the banksters of Wall Street. The Hill reports House passes Dodd-Frank changes:

The House on Wednesday passed legislation, blocked by Democrats last week, that would delay the implementation of a controversial provision in the 2010 Dodd-Frank Wall Street reform law.

Passage fell largely along party lines by a vote of 271-154. Twenty-nine Democrats joined all but one Republican in support.

The 29 Democrats were Reps. Brad Ashford (Neb.), Ami Bera (Calif.), Don Beyer (Va.), Sanford Bishop (Ga.), Julia Brownley (Calif.), Cheri Bustos (Ill.), John Carney (Del.), Gerry Connolly (Va.), Henry Cuellar (Texas), John Delaney (Md.), Bill Foster (Ill.), Gwen Graham (Fla.), Brian Higgins (N.Y.), Himes, Derek Kilmer (Wash.), Ron Kind (Wis.), Rick Larsen (Wash.), Dan Lipinski (Ill.), Sean Patrick Maloney (N.Y.), Patrick Murphy (Fla.), Scott Peters (Calif.), Jared Polis (Colo.), Mike Quigley (Ill.), Raul Ruiz (Calif.), Kurt Schrader (Ore.), David Scott (Ga.), Terri Sewell (Ala.), Kyrsten Sinema (Ariz.) and Albio Sires (N.J.).

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GOP bill to delay Dodd-Frank fails on procedural vote

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Wall.StreetThe TanMan, Weeper of the House John Boehner, must have been feeling his oats after being reelected Speaker. He was cocky and used a procedural rule for the GOP’s attempt to delay the “Volcker Rule” under Dodd-Frank regulations on financial services, requiring a two-thirds majority to pass. Oops! It blew up in his face.

From Bloomberg, Republicans Lose House Vote on Bill Easing Dodd-Frank:

On the second day of Congress’s new session, U.S. House Republicans lost a bid to quickly pass legislation to relax some requirements under the 2010 Dodd-Frank financial regulatory law.

The measure would delay until July 2019 a provision of the law’s Volcker Rule intended to limit risky investments by banks, and make other changes.

The package was defeated because Republican leaders used a voting procedure usually reserved for non-controversial measures, requiring two-thirds support for passage.

Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi urged Democrats not to support the measure, which failed on a 276-146 vote with 282 needed. She called the legislation “an 11-bill Wall Street wish list” in an e-mailed statement. After the vote, she said in a statement that she “was proud Democrats had stood together to protect critical Wall Street reforms.” [35 Democrats did not.]

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How the anti-government GOP got it wrong, and TARP turned a $15.35 billion profit for the American taxpayer

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The modern-day Republican Party is an anti-government insurgency, one best captured by P.J. O’ Rourke: “Republicans are the party that says government doesn’t work, and then they get elected and prove it.”

It has become religious dogma within the GOP that government never works, it is an evil to be destroyed. It is a belief in the Laissez-faire doctrine of the Gilded Age that government should do nothing to interfere with transactions between private parties and let the “invisible hand” of the free marketplace run its course.

American_union_bankIt is what led to the Great Depression in 1929. Andrew Mellon, the Treasury secretary to Herbert Hoover, embraced America’s history of cyclical depressions: “Liquidate labor, liquidate stocks, liquidate the farmers, liquidate real estate,” Hoover recorded was the advice he received from Mellon.

It is a rejection of Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal and aggressive government intervention in the economy to right the wrongs of a capitalist system run amok, best described by FDR in his Address Announcing the Second New Deal:

For twelve years this Nation was afflicted with hear-nothing, see-nothing, do-nothing Government. The Nation looked to Government but the Government looked away. Nine mocking years with the golden calf and three long years of the scourge! Nine crazy years at the ticker and three long years in the breadlines! Nine mad years of mirage and three long years of despair! Powerful influences strive today to restore that kind of government with its doctrine that that Government is best which is most indifferent.

For nearly four years you have had an Administration which instead of twirling its thumbs has rolled up its sleeves. We will keep our sleeves rolled up.

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