Bailed-out banks lobby hard to stave off limits

Boston Globe ^ | 9/27/2009 | Michael Kranish

[Saije]

The meeting with Bank of America executives came less than a year after American taxpayers rescued the institution with a $45 billion emergency bailout. The subject was derivatives, the complex securities that helped trigger Wall Street’s crisis and drag the country to the edge of an economic abyss.

The guest of honor: Barney Frank.

The bankers wanted to be sure that Representative Frank, the chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, would not attempt to clamp down excessively on derivatives trading. Frank said he left the session pledging to keep in mind their “legitimate’’ concerns.

“It was not lobbying politically,’’ Frank said of the meeting last summer in New York, which was held at his request. “This is lobbying intellectually.’’

Whatever it is called, it is part of a huge corporate effort in Washington to stave off or shape sweeping regulatory reforms, led by many of the very same financial institutions that received unprecedented sums of taxpayer money last year to keep them from failing.

Even as the banks say they are reforming themselves to avoid excessive financial risks, they have mounted a pitched battle against new regulations they fear could stifle competition and growth. They are spending millions of dollars, hiring former congressional and White House staffers to make their case...

Already this year, bank lobbyists have helped kill legislation that would have enabled judges to reduce mortgage payments of families that have declared bankruptcy...banks have tried to scuttle President Obama’s proposal for a Consumer Financial Protection Agency, which is designed to prevent them from using deceptive practices to sell mortgages to people who can’t afford them. They also are seeking to shape or weaken rules on commodities trading, executive compensation, and consumer credit cards.

[Saije]

I don't know that anything Congress or Obama wants to do is any good either but the whole thing really smells.

[Deagle]

The good thing is that we finally know just who is taking all these financial bailouts and how they are such poor financial experts! Now we have the knowledge to get rid of those Credit Cards and also ignore mail-outs by these crooks...Trash time...

Good luck you crooks! I will throw all of your mail into the trash where it belongs! (done with pleasure lately)...

[parsifal]

Wall Street trying to protext its excessive profits and the right to screw people. Did you know America spends 4 to 5 times as much each year on bank overdraft type fees as doctors spend on malpractice insurance?

parsy, who wonders why we don’t get told stuff like this

[Varsity Flight]

“Banks??”>>>>”Dealers”