That name, alone, should scare the hell out of you.
The latest round of ground-breaking reform efforts (snicker) is the Dodd Bill, S.3217, which is designed to once and for all eliminate big bailouts as well as protect consumers from EEEEVIL Wall Street types.
The full text of the bill is here. And Reuters has summarized it here. HuffPo blathers about it here with their full page on "The Financial Fix" -- be sure to scroll down.
In the meantime, Larry Summers stays awake (sorry Dr. Summers, I had to) long enough to point out that lots of small banks can be dangerous, too. It's a PBS interview, with transcript.
Mike Konczal, no stranger to this stuff, has posted a list of things that MUST be in the bill if any REAL reform is going to take place. He's with the Roosevelt Institute, so understand that he has an agenda to start with. Good summary though.
Don't be fooled by some of the rhetoric on this -- nobody in Congress is crusading for economic stability through reform. They are all playing to their money base, same with the President. For example, the new consumer agency will be a way to twist corporate arms to help "community organizers" get funds for their pet projects. How do we know? Look at the evolution of the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA). Not only did it give banks an excuse for making bad loans, but it allowed them to mask their political payoffs as regulatory compliance.
Remember, the law of unintended consequences was written by some guy named Murphy. The essential problem here is that the folks writing the changes (Dodd, Franks, etc.) are the same folks who got us to this point.
And by the way, Tim Geithner has never held a real job. Policy jobs aren't real jobs, in other words. Boy that should make all the policy jocks out there feel real good.
The Editors at National Review Online have posted their counterpoint on this. Worth a look. One thing they point out is that corporate finance will be impacted by this, too. The bill requires "proxy access" for shareholders, which has been a rallying cry for institutional investors of late. The editors here figure that it's a way for unions to take over boards. They may be onto something.
More on proxy access at The New York Times, from last October. Looks like it might be a big deal after all.
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