{"id":4113,"date":"2010-05-21T06:10:03","date_gmt":"2010-05-21T10:10:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/?p=4113"},"modified":"2010-05-21T06:10:03","modified_gmt":"2010-05-21T10:10:03","slug":"59-39","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/2010\/05\/21\/59-39\/","title":{"rendered":"59-39&#8230;"},"content":{"rendered":"<br \/>\n<blockquote>\n<div align=\"center\"><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/feedproxy.google.com\/%7Er\/OpenLeft-FrontPage\/%7E3\/le8_A_aenkY\/senate-passes-wall-street-reform-onto-the-conference-committee\" target=\"_blank\">Senate passes Wall Street reform;<\/a><\/strong><\/div>\n<div align=\"center\"><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/feedproxy.google.com\/%7Er\/OpenLeft-FrontPage\/%7E3\/le8_A_aenkY\/senate-passes-wall-street-reform-onto-the-conference-committee\" target=\"_blank\">Now, its onto the  conference committee<\/a><br \/> OpenLeft<\/strong><br \/> By Chris Bowers <br \/> 05\/21\/2010 9:07 PM <\/div>\n<p> <\/p>\n<div align=\"justify\">A few minutes ago, the Senate passed Wall Street  reform, 59-39. &nbsp;<strong><a href=\"http:\/\/twitter.com\/TimFernholz\/status\/14395000513\" target=\"_blank\">Tim  Fernholtz breaks down the vote<\/a><\/strong>:  <\/div>\n<div align=\"justify\">\n<ul>Grassley, Snow, Collins, Scott brown vote yes on  #FinReg. Cantwell, Feingold vote no. Specter and Byrd did not vote.<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<div align=\"justify\">Notably, the bill passed without votes on both the Brownback  weakening amendment, and the Merkley-Levin strengthening amendment which  had been attached to Brownback. <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/dealbook.blogs.nytimes.com\/2010\/05\/20\/senate-approves-sweeping-financial-regulations\/?src=busln\" target=\"_blank\">Brownback withdrew his weakening amendment in order to  kill the Merkley-Levin strengthening amendment<\/a><\/strong>, which basically  means the Senator Merkley killed the Brownback amendment by a clever  procedural maneuver: &nbsp; <\/div>\n<ul>\n<div align=\"justify\">As the Senate neared a final vote Thursday evening,  Senator Sam Brownback, Republican of Kansas, withdrew an amendment that  would have inserted into the Senate bill an exemption for auto dealers  similar to the House version.<\/div>\n<p align=\"justify\">Mr. Brownback&#8217;s move had the effect of killing an amendment by  Senators Jeff Merkley, Democrat of Oregon, and Carl Levin, Democrat of  Michigan. to bar banks from proprietary trading, or playing the markets  with their own money &#8211; a restriction generally known as the Volcker rule  for the former Fed chairman Paul Volcker, who proposed the idea. <\/p>\n<div align=\"justify\"><strong><font color=\"#200020\">The bill already contains a version of the Volcker rule, but the  Merkley-Levin amendment would have gone farther in trying to prevent  conflicts of interest between banks and their depository customers.<\/font><\/strong><\/div>\n<\/ul>\n<div align=\"justify\">Now, the fight is onto the conference committee. I will work on  putting together a complete list of the ways the House bill is better  than &nbsp;the Senate bill, and that the Senate bill is better than the House  bill. &nbsp;Fighting to get the best of both bills&#8211;and removing the worst  parts of each bill&#8211;is the goal now. Annie Lowrey has probably <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/washingtonindependent.com\/85368\/what-happens-next-to-the-finreg-bill\" target=\"_blank\">the best description of the path ahead for Wall Street  reform<\/a><\/strong>.<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p><\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<div align=\"center\"> <\/div>\n<div align=\"center\"><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/washingtonindependent.com\/85368\/what-happens-next-to-the-finreg-bill\" target=\"_blank\">What Happens Next to the FinReg Bill?<\/a><br \/>Washington Independent<\/strong><br \/>By Annie Lowrey<br \/>5\/20\/10 <\/div>\n<p>What can the conference committee change? It cannot introduce any new  language to the bill. It can only adopt either House or Senate  measures, or split the difference between the two [that said, if the  bill needed new language coming out of conference committee, there are  ways to tack it on].<\/p>\n<p><strong>What are the major issues pending?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p align=\"justify\"><strong>The Volcker Rule: <\/strong>The current Dodd bill requires the  new Financial Stability Oversight Council to study firms&rsquo; proprietary  trading operations and to create new rules prohibiting the practice. <strong><font color=\"#200020\">It  says banks should not invest in or house hedge funds either. The House  bill has no such language.<\/font><\/strong> The <strong>Merkley-Levin<\/strong> amendment would bolster the  Dodd language &mdash; immediately barring federally insured banking  institutions [think: Main Street banks] from engaging in speculative  trading and requiring non-banking institutions [think: Goldman Sachs] to  post appropriate collateral to cover their risky trades. <strong><font color=\"#200020\">If the  Merkley-Levin amendment does not make it into the Dodd bill, there is no  way to bolster the Dodd language.<\/font><\/strong><\/p>\n<p align=\"justify\"><strong>Derivatives trading:<\/strong> Derivatives remain a major  question. The House bill is very weak on requiring banks to put  derivatives trades through clearinghouses. The Lincoln language in the  Dodd bill is strong &mdash; forcing financial firms to spin off their  derivatives trading operations into separate subsidiaries. The Obama  administration opposes the Lincoln language, as do Dodd, Treasury  Secretary Timothy Geithner, Wall Street and a bevy of others. The best  guess right now is that the provision will be watered down, though it is  not clear how.<\/p>\n<p align=\"justify\">One problem: If the Cantwell amendment fixing the loopholes in  Lincoln&rsquo;s language is not voted on [and it looks like it won&rsquo;t be], the  conference committee <em>cannot<\/em> add  the language in. The House and Senate would have to vote on the fix  separately, or there would have to be some procedural maneuvering to  figure out a patch.<\/p>\n<p align=\"justify\"><strong>Capital requirements: <\/strong>The House bill has a hard 15:1  leverage requirement that the conference committee could adopt. The  Dodd bill gives regulators the authority to set capital and leverage  requirements. Progressives should be looking for hard numbers in the  conference committee report.<\/p>\n<div align=\"justify\">&middot;&middot;&middot; <strong><font color=\"#200020\">Update:<\/font><\/strong> A clarification. The McCain-Cantwell amendment imposing  Glass-Steagall-type requirements was declared not germane to the Dodd  bill, meaning it can no longer be brought up as an amendment. As I  understand it, it is not technically germane because it modifies another  act rather than changing the substance of the Dodd bill itself.<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n<div align=\"justify\">Just passing on a clear version of the news&#8230;<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Senate passes Wall Street reform; Now, its onto the conference committee OpenLeft By Chris Bowers 05\/21\/2010 9:07 PM A few minutes ago, the Senate passed Wall Street reform, 59-39. &nbsp;Tim Fernholtz breaks down the vote: Grassley, Snow, Collins, Scott brown vote yes on #FinReg. Cantwell, Feingold vote no. Specter and Byrd did not vote. Notably, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4113","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4113","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4113"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4113\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4113"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4113"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4113"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}