Time to Move Past Debate On Dodd-Frank Law: FDIC's Bair

Even with the Republicans in control of the House, major changes in the Dodd-Frank financial overhaul law are unlikely and it's time for the country "to get on with it," Sheila Bair, chairwoman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, told CNBC Thursday.

“Dodd-Frank gives the regulators a lot of tools to implement them [changes], and we are doing that in a balanced way,” said Bair, speaking from the Small Business Forum in Washington DC, a co-partnership between CNBC and the FDIC.

Sheila Bair, a holdover from Bush administration, has not met the law or regulation she didn't like, especially when it gives more power to the ruling (regulating) class:

< snip > ..... “Oversight, accountability is good but major changes, I don’t think that will happen," she said. "To some extent, it would create more uncertainty, not less.”
Bair said that the financial world has “made peace” with what she called a “landmark” law.
“It wasn’t a perfect bill, but it’s a good bill,” she added, “and we’re much better having it than not having it.”
"We need to implement it and get on with it," she said. ..... < snip >

Basically, she admits that it's a bad bill, but since it gives them more power over "powerful" and "rich" industry, and lets them shake industry down at will even more than before... "just let's move on" [dot.org]

Dood-Frank has not been implemented yet, but here's already one "unintended" consequence - and it hits exactly the people that Sheila Bair and Elizabeth Warren (new "consumer protection" czar) said the bill was designed to help and "protect" from "predatory lending" by the evil banks and credit card companies - tighter, unavailable or higher cost of credit and/or of doing business:

From Lack of Credit Leads Some Borrowers to Controversial Payday Lenders - CNBC, 2011 January 13

Yvonne Puente started her own tax preparation business last year. The 38-year old Floridian didn’t plan for the dry spell that stretches from October through New Year’s, just before tax season.
As Christmas loomed, Puente needed to make payroll for her handful of employees. Her bank cut her credit card limit, and refused to extend her a loan. So she went to Advance America to get a payday loan.
Middle-income Americans like Puente are increasingly turning to alternative loans to make ends meet. Thanks to Dodd-Frank and other regulations, bankers say they can’t make a profit on lending to this group.
As a result, subprime credit cards could shrink by a third, sucking $80 billion of credit out of the system, according to research by the Federal Reserve and Goldman Sachs .
Disappearing credit is pushing borrowers with lower credit scores into the arms of alternative lenders such as pawn shops, Internet lenders and payday stores. Among the most controversial of these subprime substitutes are payday loans.
Payday lenders in stores and on the Internet supplied almost $40 billion of short-term credit to subprime borrowers in 2009. They’ve been accused of charging astronomical interest and fostering addiction to borrowing. But for middle-income borrowers, payday loans may be the lowest cost credit alternative available to them. ..... < snip >

Hopefully, Republicans will repeal, change or defund this monster before it does even more damage to the economy and send even more capital from the U.S. overseas.

From Dodd-Frank Creates More Uncertainty: Rep. Bachus - CNBC, 2011 January 13

Taking issue with FDIC Chairman Sheila Bair, the new Republican head of the House Financial Services Committee told CNBC Thursday that the Dodd-Frank financial overhaul law actually creates more uncertainty—not less.
“We don’t really know what the regulation is,” said Rep. Spencer Bachus, (R-Ala.), who took over the powerful committee from Democrat Barney Frank after Republicans gained control of the House in the November elections.
“It’s 2,400 pages," Bachus added in a live interview. "The regulators don’t know what it is. They have to write the rules. It will be July before we know.”
Republicans have sharply criticized Dodd-Frank, which was passed in response to the 2008 financial crisis, and have vowed to make major changes in the law or curb its effectiveness by cutting funding for regulatory agencies.
Though Baucus didn't say specifically how he would attack the law, he clearly disagreed with FDIC Chairman Bair, who told CNBC earlier Thursday that Dodd-Frank created more certainty and that it was time "to move on."
Two areas Bachus plans to address are debit cards, which he said will result in less capital and fewer loans, and derivatives, which he said will “cost us more than a trillion dollars in extra expenses.” ..... < snip >

And there's no question that capital has been leaving the U.S. for awhile for "warmer climes" in Asia in response to "deep chill" towards capital since Sarbanes-Oxley fiasco (which also needs to be repealed or significantly restructured) and accelerated since Dodd-Frank became an [eventual] reality:

From Where do the rich plan to put their money this year? Rich Investors Plan to Pour Money Overseas - WSJ (no subscribtion), by Robert Frank, 2011 January 07

Where do the rich plan to put their money this year?
Not in cash or muni bonds, among the favored destinations of not so long ago.
The cash of the U.S. wealthy is on the move overseas. Here, a ticker showing the Reliance Natural Resources price is displayed outside the Bombay Stock Exchange in Mumbai. According to a new survey, 64% of wealthy investors plan to add money to long-only global stocks this year, making overseas stocks the biggest likely winner in the race for rich people’s cash. ..... < snip >
All told, the U.S. holdings of American millionaires are expected to drop to 68% in 2011 from 76% in 2009, according to Merrill Lynch and Capgemini. While wealthy investors are still heavily invested in the safe havens of cash and munis after the shock of the financial crisis, they are starting to come out of hiding to put more of their cash overseas, where they perceive higher returns. They are also putting less new money into munis, where they perceive higher risks. ..... < snip > “They’re saying, why do I need all that complexity, the tax implications and the fee structure?” she said. “Maybe it’s more attractive to just buy mid-companies in Brazil.” ..... < snip >

Republicans should get a "move on" before this Democratic fiasco does more serious damage to the economy, like more bank fees and expenses to credit-worthy customers which used to be collected from higher fees and interest to less credit-worthy or proprietary trading or other sources, unavailable anymore due to Dodd-Frank FinReg. If only people who Democrats say they are trying to "protect" or "save" understood who is stealthily making life more difficult for them.

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