Obama signs sweeping bank-reform bill into law

MarketWatch ^ | 07/21/2010 | Ronald D. Orol

[EBH]

President Barack Obama on Wednesday signed into law the most historic shake-up of the regulation of U.S. banks since the Great Depression, placing new fees and limits on the nation's biggest banks, imposing new restrictions on the $450-trillion derivatives market, and crafting a major new consumer-protection division for mortgage and credit-card products.

"Financial reform is not just good for consumers, it is good for the economy," Obama said at a signing ceremony with dozens of Democratic lawmakers and consumer advocates in attendance. "Passing this bill was no easy task. To get there, we had to overcome the furious lobbying of an array of powerful interest groups, and a partisan minority determined to block change."

The approval hands Obama a significant triumph in his effort to rein in Wall Street after the excesses that drove the economy to the brink of collapse in September, 2008.

[driftdiver]

Sadly you’re correct. They are making these laws so the agencies can fill in the blanks. What a sad sad state we are in.

[Jim W N]

Whaterthechances of getting both of these unconstitutional bills legislatively overturned after 2010 elections or revoked by SCOTUS as unconstitutional?

ObamaScarcityCare Bill

ObamaBankruptcy Bill

[Gator113]

I am sick for my country too.

[EBH]

The result is that many of the actual decisions of lawmaking and public policy—decisions previously the constitutional responsibility of elected legislators—are delegated to unaccountable bureaucrats in administrative agencies. While these agencies call their laws “rules,” there is no doubt that they have the full force and effect of law as if they were passed by Congress. Today, when Congress writes legislation, it uses very broad language that essentially turns legislative power over to agencies, which are also given the authority of executing and adjudicating violations of their regulations in particular cases. In sum, while seemingly advocating more democracy, in practice progressive liberalism wants the opposite: more centralized government authority exercised by government bureaucrats.

Do We Still Hold These Truths?

[TheDailyChange]

Yep, if ever there was an underground economy, this will ensure it’s advance a billion fold.

[SteamShovel]

This bill should start the double dip depression.

Compounded by expiring tax reductions, a littany of new taxes for "free health care" that doesn't even start until 2013, draconian EPA hammer action on energy industries followed by rising energy costs.

It's going to be a long ride through 2012...

[kevslisababy]

“Obama, the president who brought back slavery”..what at great bumper sticker that would make!

[caseinpoint]

There’s always an underground economy. When governments make it too difficult to survive legally, then the illegal/underground market will make up the difference. Years ago, in the late eighties, we had a Polish friend in our home for a month or so. He took care of his family by running a home business collecting yarn refuse from state factories and having women handknit socks which he sold in the underground market. He did whatever it took to care for his family. I still have some of those socks he brought us as a gift.

[tnvol01]

SEC Chairwoman Mary Schapiro said Monday her office would need 800 new staffers to tackle the big work load ahead.

The same Mary Schapiro hoodwinked by Bernie Madoff?

No worries.