The Washington Post tells us:
“Time and again, lawmakers, regulators and industry lobbyists pressed their concerns behind closed doors at the White House and the Treasury Department, according to participants.
“Turf-conscious regulators opposed the idea to consolidate banking oversight agencies and took their appeal over the Treasury directly to the White House. Ultimately the administration spared all but one agency.
“A few key lawmakers argued against merging the two federal agencies that oversee the stock and commodity markets. That did not happen.
“Insurance companies fought over whether a national regulator should oversee them. The White House dropped the proposal.”
Etc. Etc. Etc, ad nuseum.
So now we have 88 pages of financial reforms as if the authors of this compromised and consensualized agenda were being paid by the word. The President is telling us that “mistakes” were made as if massive crimes, theft, fraud and unregulated greed were not involved in causing the calamity at the heart if the crash of the economy.
Bloomberg surveyed the wreckage: “Financial firms worldwide have recorded more than $1.4 trillion in writedowns and credit losses since 2007 as the U.S. housing market collapsed and the economy sank into recession.”
Billions spent to unlock credit and get banks lending again have led nowhere. The financial news service quotes Tim Backshall, chief strategist at Credit Derivatives Research LLC in Walnut Creek, California.
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