Dodd-Frank Financial Reform Bill: By Crooks For “Crooks”

The U.S. Senate passed the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform Bill.  Democrats sold it as a way to “tame” Wall Street.  Maybe we should examine the question of whether anything worthy can come from the two crooks who’s name appears on the bill.

Senator Chris Dodd is not seeking re-election because he would have been clobbered in November.  During the financial “crisis” (which as we all know was caused by George W. Bush and Rush Limbaugh) Sen. Dodd oversaw the Senate Banking Committee.  During that time, a firm which was “overseen” by him, Countrywide Financial, extended to him loans with super low interest rates not available to the public:

None of these loans with their favorable, below-market terms is available to the public. They were reserved for the few with political connections — including Sen. Chris Dodd, the Connecticut Democrat who was the primary author of the financial reform bill.

Sen. Dodd also “under estimated” by 300% the value of a property he owned in Ireland:

The Hartford Courant recently reported on a cottage in Ireland in which Dodd has an interest. A new appraisal ordered by Dodd placed its value at $658,000.  Problem is, that’s roughly three times what Dodd had been listing on his financial disclosure forms . The penalty for filing false financial disclosure forms is $50,000 and up to one year in prison.

Not only that, but Sen. Dodd received, over the course of 20 years, more than $13 million in “donations”  from “PACs and employees of finance-related firms.”

As the LA Times pointed out:

That’s $250,000 per month from people who expect legislative protection.

As one representative of Common Cause diagnosed the situation for the newspaper, “We have a system where the special interests that give the most money tend to get policies out of Congress that are beneficial to them.”

Together, Barney Frank and Chris Dodd foiled numerous attempts by the previous Bush administration to rein in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, source of so many bad loans:

Among the most prominent of those in Congress who fought repeated efforts to change how Fannie and Freddie did business were two key Democrats, Sen. Chris Dodd and Rep. Barney Frank. Guess what? They’re still there, making things worse.

Here’s what Sen. Frank said in 2003:

“I do think I do not want the same kind of focus on safety and soundness that we have in OCC (Office of the Comptroller of the Currency) and OTS (Office of Thrift Supervision). I want to roll the dice a little bit more in this situation towards subsidized housing … .”

Rep. Barney Frank, Sept. 25, 2003

Rolling the dice… which meant forcing Fannie and Freddie to extend loans to people who weren’t qualified, which resulted in bad loans, defaults, losses, and, well, you can guess the rest…

Barney Frank, who had his fingers deeply into Fannie and Freddie said this in 2008:

I think this is a case where Fannie and Freddie are fundamentally sound, that they are not in danger of going under. They’re not the best investments these days from the long-term standpoint going back. I think they are in good shape going forward.

So far, those two institutions have cost taxpayers $145 billion.

And what about that housing bubble?  Here’s Barney Frank in 2005:

[Y]ou’re not going to see the collapse that you see when people talk about a bubble. And so, those of us on our committee in particular, will continue to push for home ownership.

Regarding Frank’s manipulation of housing market lenders he pushed to increase risky loans then later said he did the opposite:

Frank did, however, introduce legislation of his own in October of last year. Would you believe that H.R. 3838 was actually an attempt to temporarily increase the caps on Fannie/Freddie portfolios and to mandate the “use of 85% of such increase for refinancing subprime mortgages at risk of foreclosure?”

Later Frank said this:

Yes, I did want to help affordable housing, but I also wanted to prevent bad loans.

Investor’s Business Daily concludes:

It is abundantly clear that Frank and Dodd were central in protecting the two original Too Big to Fail institutions.

And these are the two Democratic crooks who authored this financial “reform” bill?.

And, lastly, the bill contains numerous provisions which have nothing to do with financial security including:

1. [A] measure to make it easier for unions, environmental groups and other activist organizations that hold shares to put their representatives on the boards of directors of every corporation in the United States.
2. [I]mpose costly new burdens on airlines, utilities and other non-financial businesses that were victims rather than villains in the crisis simply because they use financial derivatives to hedge their businesses against risks such as fluctuations in oil prices, interest rates and currencies.Such hedging practices played no role in the crisis, though they helped many businesses weather the financial turbulence and recession that followed in the aftermath of the Wall Street storm.
3. The bill would create more than 20 “offices of minority and women inclusion” at the Treasury, Federal Reserve and other government agencies, to ensure they employ more women and minorities and grant more federal contracts to more women- and minority-owned businesses
4. The agencies also would apply “fair employment tests” to the banks and other financial institutions they regulate, though their hiring and contracting practices had little or nothing to do with the 2008 financial crisis.

Rules to help unions, force quotas on government and private entities, create more government agencies, and penalize companies trying to stay afloat with the entire thing authored by two crooks.

How can it not succeed?

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