Finance bill favors interests of unions, activists
WaveCameCrashin
Posts: 2,929
and not one word about Fannie mea and Freddie Mac :x and not to mention Chris Dodd and Barney Frank wrote this bill. What a disgrace :( .
and not to mention Scott Brown. another disgrace as far as Im concerned.
this bill is going to nothing but hurt small businesses.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/201 ... activists/
The financial reform bill expected to clear Congress this week is chock-full of provisions that have little to do with the financial crisis but cater to the long-standing agendas of labor unions and other Democratic interest groups.
Principal among them is a measure to make it easier for unions, environmental groups and other activist organizations that hold shares to put their representatives on the boards of directors of every corporation in the United States.
The so-called "proxy access" provision, which activist groups say they will use to try to improve oversight of corporate financial practices, has provoked a backlash from the Business Roundtable, U.S. Chamber of Commerce and other major non-Wall Street business groups.
"This legislation includes provisions totally unrelated to the financial crisis which may disrupt Americas fragile economic recovery" and lead to increasing political battles in the boardrooms, said John J. Castellani, president of the roundtable.
Business groups are also rankled that the legislation would impose costly new burdens on airlines, utilities and other non-financial businesses that were victims rather than villains in the crisis, simply because they use financial derivatives to hedge their businesses against risks such as fluctuations in oil prices, interest rates and currencies.
Such hedging practices played no role in the crisis, though they helped many businesses weather the financial turbulence and recession that followed in the aftermath of the Wall Street storm.
Other provisions of the financial legislation, which goes before the full Senate on Thursday for a vote and likely passage, favor Democratic constituencies directly by requiring banks and federal agencies to hire and do more business with them.
The bill would create more than 20 "offices of minority and women inclusion" at the Treasury, Federal Reserve and other government agencies, to ensure they employ more women and minorities and grant more federal contracts to more women- and minority-owned businesses.
The agencies also would apply "fair employment tests" to the banks and other financial institutions they regulate, though their hiring and contracting practices had little or nothing to do with the 2008 financial crisis.
"The interjection of racial and gender preferences into America's financial sector deserves greater media exposure" before Congress debates and passes the massive 2,400-page bill, said Kevin Mooney, a contributing editor for Americans for Limited Government's daily newsletter.
The powerful new consumer protection agency that is the centerpiece of the reform bill also would provide substantial employment opportunities and funding for Democratic and social-activist groups such as the Association of Community Organizers for Reform Now (ACORN), critics say.
Rather than focus on the abuses in the mortgage-lending market that led to the crisis, the new consumer agency would have broad-ranging powers to regulate and punish virtually any company that has a financial relationship with consumers - even those that had nothing to do with the crisis, said Sen. Richard C. Shelby, Alabama Republican.
Mr. Shelby, the ranking member of the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee, sought to craft a more tailored role for the agency in weeks of negotiation over the Senate bill.
"During our negotiations on the consumer bureaucracy, my Democrat friends were not focused on the mortgage market. Their sights were set on the rest of the economy," he said. "The new bureaucracy is an enormous reach across virtually every segment of our economy, and a massive expansion of government influence in our daily financial lives."
Sen. Bob Corker, a Tennessee Republican who also sought to help write a bipartisan Senate bill more narrowly focused on the problems that led to the crisis, said he fears that an activist director of the consumer agency could use agency power to direct loans to favored constituencies, regardless of whether the loans are sound or pose risks to the banking system.
"This may sound a little far-fetched, but you can have the wrong person in this position - there's no board, there's really no check and balance - that you can imagine could use this organization to try to create social justice in the financial system," he said.
Like the corporate boardroom provisions, many of the activities within the reach of the new consumer agency had "absolutely nothing - zero - to do with the financial crisis," Mr. Corker said. "But this has become a Christmas tree for those kinds of things, because people realize it's something that's going to pass."
and not to mention Scott Brown. another disgrace as far as Im concerned.
this bill is going to nothing but hurt small businesses.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/201 ... activists/
The financial reform bill expected to clear Congress this week is chock-full of provisions that have little to do with the financial crisis but cater to the long-standing agendas of labor unions and other Democratic interest groups.
Principal among them is a measure to make it easier for unions, environmental groups and other activist organizations that hold shares to put their representatives on the boards of directors of every corporation in the United States.
The so-called "proxy access" provision, which activist groups say they will use to try to improve oversight of corporate financial practices, has provoked a backlash from the Business Roundtable, U.S. Chamber of Commerce and other major non-Wall Street business groups.
"This legislation includes provisions totally unrelated to the financial crisis which may disrupt Americas fragile economic recovery" and lead to increasing political battles in the boardrooms, said John J. Castellani, president of the roundtable.
Business groups are also rankled that the legislation would impose costly new burdens on airlines, utilities and other non-financial businesses that were victims rather than villains in the crisis, simply because they use financial derivatives to hedge their businesses against risks such as fluctuations in oil prices, interest rates and currencies.
Such hedging practices played no role in the crisis, though they helped many businesses weather the financial turbulence and recession that followed in the aftermath of the Wall Street storm.
Other provisions of the financial legislation, which goes before the full Senate on Thursday for a vote and likely passage, favor Democratic constituencies directly by requiring banks and federal agencies to hire and do more business with them.
The bill would create more than 20 "offices of minority and women inclusion" at the Treasury, Federal Reserve and other government agencies, to ensure they employ more women and minorities and grant more federal contracts to more women- and minority-owned businesses.
The agencies also would apply "fair employment tests" to the banks and other financial institutions they regulate, though their hiring and contracting practices had little or nothing to do with the 2008 financial crisis.
"The interjection of racial and gender preferences into America's financial sector deserves greater media exposure" before Congress debates and passes the massive 2,400-page bill, said Kevin Mooney, a contributing editor for Americans for Limited Government's daily newsletter.
The powerful new consumer protection agency that is the centerpiece of the reform bill also would provide substantial employment opportunities and funding for Democratic and social-activist groups such as the Association of Community Organizers for Reform Now (ACORN), critics say.
Rather than focus on the abuses in the mortgage-lending market that led to the crisis, the new consumer agency would have broad-ranging powers to regulate and punish virtually any company that has a financial relationship with consumers - even those that had nothing to do with the crisis, said Sen. Richard C. Shelby, Alabama Republican.
Mr. Shelby, the ranking member of the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee, sought to craft a more tailored role for the agency in weeks of negotiation over the Senate bill.
"During our negotiations on the consumer bureaucracy, my Democrat friends were not focused on the mortgage market. Their sights were set on the rest of the economy," he said. "The new bureaucracy is an enormous reach across virtually every segment of our economy, and a massive expansion of government influence in our daily financial lives."
Sen. Bob Corker, a Tennessee Republican who also sought to help write a bipartisan Senate bill more narrowly focused on the problems that led to the crisis, said he fears that an activist director of the consumer agency could use agency power to direct loans to favored constituencies, regardless of whether the loans are sound or pose risks to the banking system.
"This may sound a little far-fetched, but you can have the wrong person in this position - there's no board, there's really no check and balance - that you can imagine could use this organization to try to create social justice in the financial system," he said.
Like the corporate boardroom provisions, many of the activities within the reach of the new consumer agency had "absolutely nothing - zero - to do with the financial crisis," Mr. Corker said. "But this has become a Christmas tree for those kinds of things, because people realize it's something that's going to pass."
Post edited by Unknown User on
0
Comments
And business representatives critical of a bill that is designed to affect them negatively, no way!
To me it sounds like Obama got mostly what he wanted with this bill. Some collateral porking seems completely essential in the US system to get anything passed.
Peace
Dan
"Every judgment teeters on the brink of error. To claim absolute knowledge is to become monstrous. Knowledge is an unending adventure at the edge of uncertainty." - Frank Herbert, Dune, 1965
I am in a union "aerospace workers" and this scares me it could push more business's out to over seas
companys, the company I work for is already moving parts of our company to poland
Godfather.
And as for the companies threatening to move overseas, if it was that important for them to make a profit, and it was so easy to set up operations elsewhere, they'd already be gone. Or, it may be just a matter of time whatever american politicians might do. Well except raising toll walls on everything.
But it's not fun working in a company with an insecure future, or that's going through reorganzations. You have my sympathies, comrade.
Peace
Dan
"Every judgment teeters on the brink of error. To claim absolute knowledge is to become monstrous. Knowledge is an unending adventure at the edge of uncertainty." - Frank Herbert, Dune, 1965
I love the outrage the display...I heard on NPR news the repubs added lots of amendments then voted no...
the repubs seem to be a bunch of do-nothing babies...
When it's all said and done, there may appear to be more restrictions on big business, but the banks will still receive the same or more government-sponsored protectionism as before.
This isn't progress, it's a waste of time.
Also I keep hearing Reid and Obama both say that the taxpayers will NEVER pay to bail out banks again.
So since they have the next financial crisis solved can they please work on this one?
+1
by far the best post I have ever seen from you...Awesome
It is terrifying when you are too stupid to know who is dumb
- Joe Rogan