Congress enacts sweeping capital markets reform
Despite gloomy pronouncements by Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, upon introducing his capital-markets reform package, the Senate this morning enacted the entire proposal, with the House following suit by voice vote.
Listening with wrapped attention?
Yesterday the Secretary had been cautious, as reported in The Wall Street Journal:
“Once we are through this period of market stress, we need to begin the serious work of modernizing and reforming the structure, which will require a great deal of discussion and many years to complete,” Mr. Paulson said, stressing the need to separate long-term reform from immediate concerns.
When Congress opened for business this morning, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid issued a joint statement criticizing the Administration for doubting their expedition.
Just another day serving the people of
As their statement noted:
It is high time to bring all capital providers under a single regulatory umbrella, and rationalize a system in which:
· Banks have a CRA obligation and non-bank entities such as insurance company don’t.
· Publicly traded entities are required to mark assets to market (typically quarterly) and private ones are not, creating an information asymmetry, where public entities may be forced to mark to bottom.
· Four different regulatory bodies (OTS, FDIC, OCC, and the Fed) oversee CRA compliance.
· Federal and state banking regulations conflict.
The two leaders added that “policy not politics has always governed our actions, as indeed those of our colleagues across the aisle and in the White House.”
Secretary Paulson was pleased by the news, but unsurprised:
They’re voting on it now, Mr. Secretary
In other news, President Bush stepped down under the 25th Amendment (”Dick says he wantsta drive it a while”),
Bring it back by eleven, okay?
and Senators Clinton and Obama, appearing at a joint press conference,
Hey, what about Al and John as a team?
announced they were throwing their support to the ‘dream team’ ticket of Al Gore and John Kerry (”proven winners”).
Hey, that coulda been me
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