Don't Forget the 99%

The Occupy Movement has not died, principally because Wall Street is still conducting shenanigans right before our very eyes: Witness Section 716 of Dodd Frank rendered mute by CRominbus in December.  NEVER FORGET.  And the wolves circle:

New Republic:

Friday, the Federal Reserve delayed by two years compliance with the Volcker rule, the prohibition on banks’ proprietary trading—deals made to profit the bank instead of their clients. The postponement removes a key argument of those people who dismissed Congress’ Christmas gift last week to Wall Street, the elimination of Dodd-Frank Section 716.


Section 716 required commercial banks to push their riskiest swaps into separately capitalized subsidiaries—but Congress nixed it with a rider in its year-end budget bill known as the CRomnibus. Wall Street lobbied intensively for Section 716’s erasure, but even some of the finance industry’s toughest critics, like Paul Krugman, argued that substantively, it wasn’t that big a deal.


And one key reason they gave for this was that the Volcker rule overlapped with the Section 716 rule. The theory went that the Volcker rule already prohibited risky trades, so there was no need to also spin them off into subsidiaries. The Bipartisan Policy Center (BPC), applauding the CRomnibus maneuver, wrote, “a well-structured and monitored Volcker rule will accomplish the same policy objectives as the Lincoln amendment, making the swaps push out both costly and unnecessary.”

Wolves Whining

The more things change, the more they stay the same, eh?  Along with Elizabeth Warren's rhetoric of not backing down with these jerks on Wall Street EVER and the upcoming 2016 political extravaganza, one wonders about how Hillary will dance around this lovely serious subject area -- the economy of the world!  Welcome to global politics, Ms. Secretary of State.  And welcome to the maelstrom and what that portends.

For me?  I will be watching these players with much fascination, for the global financial markets are the only game in town when one is bought and sold then nabbed up and bought all over again.