Thursday, April 15, 2010

Lost Ball in the High Weeds - Dodd's Financial Reform Legislation

It is very interesting to see how the media portrays Senator Chris Dodd's Financial Reform Legislation. Even, the media outlets in the financial services industry have no clue. Let me help the people who do not know how to read or who are too lazy to read the bill.

As I reported in a prior blog post, there are a confusing array of new bureaucratic organizations that will be created with this bill. Just what we need, more government bureaucracies.

See my March 16th, 2010 post entitled, "More Bureaucracies and More Studies"

These are the new government bureaucracies that are in the Dodd Bill.

Financial Stability Oversight Council
Office of Financial Research
Orderly Liquidation Authority Panel
Office of National Insurance
Investor Advisory Committee
Office of Investor Advocate
Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection
Consumer Advisory Board

I just have to wonder. Since Senator Dodd is retiring from the Senate, do you think he may have created an agency, advocacy, board, committee, council, panel, office or bureau that he may himself want to be a part of in his retirement? No. Say it ain't so. Would he?

Perhaps some of his cronies will be appointed to one of these agencies, advocacies, boards, committees, councils, panels, offices or bureaus. Do you notice when the government writes legislation and they are trying to create more bureaucracies, then find themselves in a predicament. They cannot name all of their groups Councils, or Committees. They have to come up with different names like panel, advocacy, office or bureau. How stupid do they think we are?

Take a look at the last four on the list. Now, you tell me...which one of these will have more authority and which one of these will really protect consumers? The Investor Advisory Committee or the Office of Investor Advocate? Perhaps, the Consumer Advisory Board will have the most authority, but wait, the Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection has the best name. After all, it has the word bureau in it which is where we derive the term bureaucracy.

Now, we have not even started our blog discussion on the budgets for each of these groups. I can just imagine the waste of federal money that will be lost in these agencies, advocacies, boards, committees, councils, panels, offices or bureaus. Another example, of your federal tax dollars at work people.

If you think the above list contains a lot of bureaucracies, then look at all of the studies that are to be done required in the Dodd bill.

1. GAO study and report on accredited investors
2. GAO study on self-regulatory organization for private funds
3. SEC Commission study and report on short selling
4. GAO study of non-admitted insurance market
5. Study on treatment of credit card banks, industrial loan companies, and certain other companies under the Bank Holding Company Act of 1956
6. Study and report on implementation related to Security-Based Swap Markets
7. Study and rulemaking regarding obligations of brokers, dealers, and investment advisers
8. Study regarding financial literacy among investors
9. Study regarding mutual fund advertising
10. GAO study and Federal agency review of required uses of nationally recognized statistical rating organization ratings.
11. SEC study on strengthening credit rating agency independence
12. GAO study on alternative business models
13. GAO study on the creation of an independent professional analyst organization
14. GAO study of increased disclosure of Municipal Securities to investors
15. GAO study on the Municipal Securities markets.
16. Study of funding for the Government Accounting Standards Board.
17. GAO study on proprietary trading
18. GAO study on the effectiveness and impact of various appraisal methods

People, this is how the government keeps the juggernaut going with endless studies that need endless amounts of funding. Ridiculous.

These people in Congress who write this garbage are "lost balls in the high weeds." We need to vote them ALL out of office this fall.

I believe in the American Voter. This fall, we will start the process to take back our country.

Stay tuned.

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