Underestimating the Horrors of Dodd-Frank (Banks have hundreds of lawyers working just to comply)
IBD via RealClearMarkets ^ | 01/25/2012 / FR Posted by SeekAndFind
Regulation: Tuesday's GOP debate moderator was shocked by the front-runners' broadside against Dodd-Frank banking rules. He seemed to think they were hyping their damage. They weren't. The media elite are under the assumption that all government regulations are good. So when both Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich took shots at Dodd-Frank, NBC News anchor Brian Williams was flabbergasted.
He expressed skepticism that its new rules posed any problem. Gingrich straightened him out, arguing the media and the public don't know how "bad" the Democrats' law is. "If you could repeal Dodd-Frank tomorrow morning, you would see the economy start to improve overnight," Gingrich asserted. "It is crushing independent banks" by clamping down on lending for both housing and small businesses. Indeed, the American Bankers Association predicts the law will shutter 1,000 banks by 2020.
"The Dodd-Frank Act and the related burdens are threatening not just our industry but our very banks," outgoing ABA chair Stephen Wilson last year wrote to FDIC chief Sheila Bair. "The most conservative estimates that we have seen predict that by the end of the decade there will be 1,000 fewer banks in the United States than there are today."(Excerpt) Read more at realclearmarkets.com ...
===================================
Dodd even knows where all the bailout money is hidden---to finance Hollyweird's trashy output.
FOURTEEN TRILLION DOLLARS Behind The Real Size of the Bailout; A guide to the abbreviations, acronyms, and obscure programs that make up the $14 trillion federal bailout of Wall Street
SOURCE motherjones.com
Mon Dec. 21, 2009 12:23 PM PST
The price tag for the Wall Street bailout is often put at $700 billion—the size of the Troubled Assets Relief Program. But TARP is just the best known program in an array of more than 30 overseen by Treasury Department and Federal Reserve that have paid out or put aside money to bail out financial firms and inject money into the markets.
To get a sense of the size of the real $14 trillion bailout, see our chart at web site. Below, a guide to the pieces of the puzzle:
Treasury Department bailout programs
(Remember that Obama's Treasury Dept was controlled by his then-COS Rahm Emanuel---a G/S lobbyist in the WH)
Money Market Mutual Fund: In September 2008, the Treasury announced that it would insure the holdings of publicly offered money market mutual funds. According to the Special Inspector General for the Troubled Asset Relief Program (SIGTARP), these guarantees could have potentially cost the federal government more than $3 trillion [PDF].
Public-Private Investment Fund: This joint Treasury-Federal Reserve program bought toxic assets from banks and brokerages—as much as $5 billion of assets per firm. According to SIGTARP, the government's potential exposure from the PPIF is between $500 million and $1 trillion [PDF].
TARP: As part of the Troubled Asset Relief Program, the Treasury has made loans to or investments more than 750 banks and financial institutions. $650 billion has been paid out (not including HAMP; see below). As of December 21, 2009, $117.5 billion of that has been repaid.
Government-sponsored enterprise (GSE) stock purchase: The Treasury has bought $200 million in preferred stock from Fannie Mae and another $200 million from Freddie Mac [PDF] to show that they "will remain viable entities critical to the functioning of the housing and mortgage markets."
GSE mortgage-backed securities purchase: Under the Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008, the Treasury may buy mortgage-backed securities from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. According to SIGTARP, these purchases could cost as much as $314 billion ---SNIP---.
LONG READ---go to web site to read more and checkout the shocking financial charts.
SOURCE http://motherjones.com/politics/2009/12/behind-real-size-bailout
TO THE POINT Newt's debate response when asked about SOPA..... When debate mod tried to nail Newt on SOPA. Newt parried with: "You're asking a conservative about the economic interests of Hollywood?