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President Obama was quick to claim victory at week’s end, after congressional negotiators hammered out a final bill regulating the financial sector, saying it provides “90% of what I proposed.” But just how the nearly 2,000-page bill will affect New York — which relies upon financial institutions for a major share of its tax base — remains unclear. After all, as Senate Banking Committee Chairman Chris Dodd admitted: “No one will know until this is actually in place how it works.” Which is why Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R-Texas) warns of “three unintended consequences on every page of this bill.” Not...

The Senate voted 59-39 on Thursday to pass the bill, the chief aim of which is to more-heavily regulate the financial industry. The bill now goes to a conference committee in the House of Representatives, where differences between the House and Senate versions will be ironed out. The bill, if it becomes law, would create the Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection and empower it to “gather information and activities of persons operating in consumer financial markets,” including the names and addresses of account holders, ATM and other transaction records, and the amount of money kept in each customer’s account.

Sen. Judd Gregg (R-N.H.) on Monday declared the recently passed financial reform bill a disaster since it failed to address the main reasons that caused the market to collapse. "This bill is a disaster because it doesn't address the fundamental underlying causes of the economic issue, which were real estate and underwriting," he told CNBC's Squawk Box. ..."It's going to become an agency which defines lending on social justice purposes as versus on safety and soundness of purposes," he said, adding, "So you'll basically have a consumer agency which decides to go out in the morning, say, well everybody who...

President Obama has taken the United States one more giant step toward socialism by ramming through the Senate his financial regulation bill. The bill authorizes the secretary of the treasury -- a political appointee -- to seize any financial company (bank or non-bank) simply because, in his opinion, it is too big to fail and in danger of insolvency. This power can be used for political retribution, pressure for campaign funding or any other abuse that bureaucratic whim or partisan politics can conceive. It is a power Fidel Castro or Hugo Chavez would love to have! The legislation also requires...

Senate Democrats united to pass a financial regulatory bill that allows the government to collect data on any person operating in financial markets at any level, including the collection of personal transaction records from local banks, including customers’ addresses and ATM receipts. The Senate voted 59-39 on Thursday to pass the bill – the chief aim of which is to more-heavily regulate the financial industry – sending it to a conference committee in the House of Representatives, where differences between the House and Senate versions will be ironed out. The bill, if it becomes law, will create the Bureau of...

Sweeping Wall Street Reform Bill Advances Legislation is one of President Barack Obama's top domestic priorities WASHINGTON - U.S. Senate Democrats nabbed the 60 votes needed on Thursday to advance the biggest overhaul of financial regulation since the 1930s, paving the way for a final vote on passage within days. The legislation is one of President Barack Obama's top domestic priorities. The bill calls for new ways to watch for risks in the financial system and makes it easier to liquidate large financial firms that are failing. It also writes new rules for complex securities blamed for helping precipitate the...

Talk about taking another giant leap in the wrong direction. Fresh off his successful (for now) effort to ram through an unpopular healthcare “reform” law, President Barack Obama is now fighting for legislation on Capitol Hill that would set up a permanent fund to bail out companies in the financial sector. Of course, that’s not how his team is spinning things. On the White House Blog, Jen Psaki claims that “under the Senate bill, the taxpayers will never be asked to foot the bill for Wall Street’s irresponsibility.” But that’s simply not true If you liked the bailouts in 2008,...