Treasury Department Plan Would Give Fed Wide New Power

[babylonsister]

Treasury Department Plan Would Give Fed Wide New Power
By Edmund L. Andrews
The New York Times

Saturday 29 March 2008


Washington - The Treasury Department will propose on Monday that Congress give the Federal Reserve broad new authority to oversee financial market stability, in effect allowing it to send SWAT teams into any corner of the industry or any institution that might pose a risk to the overall system.

The proposal is part of a sweeping blueprint to overhaul the nation's hodgepodge of financial regulatory agencies, which many experts say failed to recognize rampant excesses in mortgage lending until after they set off what is now the worst financial calamity in decades.

Democratic lawmakers are all but certain to say the proposal does not go far enough in restricting the kinds of practices that caused the financial crisis. Many of the proposals, like those that would consolidate regulatory agencies, have nothing to do with the turmoil in financial markets. And some of the proposals could actually reduce regulation.

According to a summary provided by the administration, the plan would consolidate an alphabet soup of banking and securities regulators into a powerful trio of overseers responsible for everything from banks and brokerage firms to hedge funds and private equity firms.

While the plan could expose Wall Street investment banks and hedge funds to greater scrutiny, it carefully avoids a call for tighter regulation.


more...

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/032908B.shtml

[ananda]

1. Typical Bushitism.

All talk and no show.. or

all hat and no cattle.

[HuffleClaw]

2. is there ANYTHING they won't screw with ?

this cannot possibly bode well

[roamer65]

3. This will drive a stake into the heart of the greenback.

The Fed has pretty much destroyed the dollar. This will ensure it.

[havocmom]

4. Giving the fox more authority in the hen house is not the answer

Fed Reserve is NOT an agency of the government. The regulatory hodgepodge won't be fixed by the business interests who authored the hodgepodge via the pols they bought to change/neuter regulations in the first place!

The rich are done eating us and now they are lining up to eat each other. This will clobber smaller corporations and financial entities. Then, corporate powers will go after any big fish slightly smaller than themselves. In the end, there can be only one. And that is NOT a free market.

IT'S FASCISM