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Strategies & Market Trends : Waiting for the big Kahuna -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: puborectalis who wrote (90600)	10/15/2009 7:01:18 PM
From: Skywatcher	Respond to of 94695

about time

To: puborectalis who wrote (90600)	10/30/2009 8:13:19 PM
From: the navigator	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 94695

In a 43-26 decision, the House of Representatives Financial Services Committee voted in favor of slapping new rules on the largely unpoliced $450-trillion OTC derivatives market, widely blamed for amplifying last year's financial crisis. unfortunately, as with so much these days, it is not what it seems. nakedcapitalism.com ............................................................... Thursday, October 29, 2009 Bank-Favoring Censorship by Congress Harper’s Magazine has written up the lengths to which the authorities will go in censoring views that dissent with what is the unstated official policy: that no demand of the banking industry is too unreasonable not to be catered to. The object lesson is the gutting of the falsely-branded derivatives reform bill. It arrived with a loophole so large you could drive a truck through it, namely that customized derivatives were not covered. So this bill will do nothing to impede the growth of complex opaque products; in fact, it encourages it, since banks will have no oversight if they tweak a product so that is can be deemed “customized.” It was further weakened by excluding most of the banks in America and by excluding a whole swathe of end users. The final insult was making the derivatives clearing house self-regulating. The hearings on the bill had testimony scheduled only from what amounted to industry flacks. Someone apparently realized at the 11th hour that that might not go over with the correctly angry public too well. So less than 24 hours prior to the session before the House Financial Services Committee, an invitation was issued to Rob Johnson, a former managing director at Bankers Trust Company and former economist at the Senate Banking Committee and Senate Budget Committee. So what transpired? As Ken Silverstein recounts: Johnson, who came last, offered the only serious critical viewpoint… After about five minutes of his testimony, Congresswoman Melissa Bean—another industry-funded committee member who chaired the hearing because Frank was absent—had heard enough. “I’m just going to ask you to wrap up because we’re running out of time,” she told Johnson. Johnson gamely continued. “When I hear the testimony today that are largely financial institutions and end users, I believe that I represent a third group that comes to the table, which is the taxpayers, the working people of the United States,” he said. “I do need a final comment,” Bean interjected seconds later. That put an end to Johnson’s testimony. “I was just called to this hearing last night, so I will provide detailed comments on your bill and a statement for the record that will finish my comments,” he concluded. So what happens next? >The House Financial Services Committee has refused to publish his testimony, offering “the dog ate my homework” level excuses, first that they hadn’t gotten it, then that it was in the wrong format, then that their IT department was experiencing difficulties (always a good one when real reasons are running thin). The last one was pure Catch-22: that he had gotten his written testimony in too late. You can read his statement, which is obviously too offensive to powerful interests for it to see the light of day in any officially-sanctioned venue, at the Roosevelt Institute.