Citizens' Daily Lobby

Financial reform legislation has passed, but the details of regulation and enforcement are still being hammered out.  You can bet the 1500 plus bank lobbyists in Washington are doing their best to get all the loopholes and exceptions they can squeeze in.   Right now, federal regulators are taking public comments on the Volcker rule.   In a nut shell, the Volcker rule aims to keep the banks from extremely risky practices like proprietary trading and sponsoring hedge funds.    Americans for Financial Reform has sample comments for you to edit.  You may copy and paste, but your comments will have more impact if you put them into your own words.   Comments are only being accepted through Nov. 5, 2010, so get them in.

1. Follow this link, and you will be directed to the page where you can submit a comment about the Volcker rule.

Or go to: http://www.regulations.gov/search/Regs/home.html#submitComment?R=0900006480b68f1c

2. Next, cut and paste the SAMPLE COMMENT that follows this message into the comment box. Fill out all the required information.

3. In the required field that asks for your “Organization Name” please write your own name.

4. Click “Submit.”

The banks have already submitted their regulatory comments. Now it’s our turn!

The Volcker rule will prevent banks from trying to make a quick buck by betting – and possibly losing – trillions of dollars and leaving all of us with the tab.

It’s our money that the regulators should be protecting, so make your voice heard.

Please copy and paste the SAMPLE COMMENT below. Feel free to edit it and add your perspective on the economic crisis:

RE: Docket ID: FSOC-2010-0002 – Public Input for the Study Regarding the Implementation of the Prohibition on Proprietary Trading and Certain Relationships With Hedge Funds and Private Equity Funds.

Dear Members of the Financial Stability Oversight Council:

I am writing as a concerned member of the public who was affected by the financial meltdown and bailouts caused by Wall Street banks’ high-risk trading. I am submitting this comment pursuant to the Financial Stability Oversight Council’s request for comment on Sections 619-621 of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act.

We demand a strong Volcker Rule that:

Question 4/9: Doesn’t Let the Exceptions Swallow the Rule: Bankers and their lobbyists are looking for ways to make exceptions into massive loopholes to maintain business as usual.  If banks are profiting from swings in price, that’s proprietary trading. If the hedging trade is itself a high-risk investment, that should be prohibited.

Question 7: Doesn’t Let Banks Bail Out Hedge Funds: Though the Rule limits banks’ involvement in risky buyout funds, it doesn’t end it completely.  We know that even a small bank investment in risky funds can lead to a big bank bailout that puts the system at risk: Bear Stearns ended up spending $3 billion bailing out a hedge fund it only had $35 million invested in. Regulators must write the anti-bailout provisions to force banks to warn anyone who does hedge fund business with them that they won’t be able to bail them out

Question 12: Doesn’t Let Banks Cheat Their Customers: The Volcker Rule bans certain specific conflicts of interest outright, but it also has a catch-all rule: regulators must ban any activity that creates a material conflict of interest between banks and their customers. Regulators should investigate the range of ways that Wall Street is profiting at the expense of the public, and use this power to crack down on abuses.

Thank you.

Salary and tax disparity are graphically illustrated in this chart from MoveOn.  Critics tell me it isn’t exactly to scale… the doctor should be a lot taller, for instance, and we probably should only see the top of the hedge fund manager’s shoe.  Still, I think it makes the point.

Fresh-faced Patrick Kennedy, lately of the Clinton School, now Democratic candidate for Congress in AR-02, unlike most of his competition, is not afraid to state his position on the issues.    There are ideas aplenty in the  9 pages his website devotes to a range of issues.   Health care reform?  He’s for “non-traditional competition” to private insurers and supports the mandate for preventive coverage.   Fiscal responsibility?  How about corporations pay their  fair share?  National lottery?  More donations to charity?  Innovation prizes for research?

Where does Patrick stand on environmental issues?  He supports modified cap and trade and tighter regulations on wetlands, the gradual end of subsidies for oil and natural gas, and innovation prizes (again with the prize money).  Civil rights?  He supports a woman’s right to choose, the overturn of the Defense of Marriage Act, and the repeal of “Don’t ask, don’t tell.”  It’s good to know someone out there is willing to separate himself from the Conservatives on these  issues.

Like many Americans on both Left and Right, Patrick thinks the US should pull out of NAFTA, and he adds the World Trade Organization as well.   Many believe taking these steps will strengthen our exports.  It will also likely loosen the stranglehold that multinationals currently have on governments the world over and limit the “race to the bottom” that results when they move jobs and production to countries with the lowest labor costs and least stringent environmental regulations.

His website is well-done and informative, and he seems a solid Democrat in the old sense of the word.   And, oh, yeah, he would like you to know he’s  not one of those Kennedys.

In Harrison today, a groundbreaking headline read “Lincoln Is First Arkansan to Chair Agri Committee”.     Really?   News travels slowly here in the Natural State, unless it’s gossip, but I really didn’t think anyone was this far out.   From what I can see,  her position as Chair of this Senate Committee  is all she really has going for her in this election, and she’s hitting it hard.   So hard, even the Harrison Daily Times has caught on.  I have to hand it to them, though.  Harrison is not a big place, and keeping a daily paper running there is commendable, to say the least.

I can’t get a good feel for any of the 2nd District Democratic contenders.   Does anyone out there have the same sinking feeling that the Democrats are losing the name recognition game?  I have seen exactly zero yard signs for anyone except Griffin and Wallace in this race (and I’m talking about the Hillcrest/Heights and downtown areas as well as my own stomping grounds in Near West Little Rock).   I’m not sure who would get my vote at this point.   A review of websites and visits to campaign headquarters is going to be on my to do list over the weekend.   Of the two more well-known candidates, Robbie Wills is definitely too conservative for my tastes.  I like Joyce Elliott,  but I think the voter demographics here in the 2nd will make her race a problem (I’m ashamed of our state in this regard).

I am disappointed in Bill Halter’s campaign efforts thus far.  I went by the campaign headquarters last weekend.  Even knowing that it is located “across from Dickey-Stevens field,” I still had a hard time finding it.  There were no signs by the road, just a few small posters in the windows.  Directly across the street, Judge Henry has a huge banner… Hasn’t Halter raised enough money for a banner of his own?   The staff  also had no yard signs or bumper stickers available.  We are just over a month away from the primary election.

The Forum on Finance Reform last week drew 40 citizen participants, according to Arkansas Community Organizations.   Financial industry lobbyists are spending about $1million per Senator these days to keep significant reform out of pending legislation.   Senator Lincoln, in her much-touted role as Senate Agriculture Committee Chair , has been sitting down with  Chambliss Saxby (R, GA) to work on compromises for the bill.   If her work on health care reform is any indication, those compromises could potentially take the teeth right out of the Senate bill.

I’m off to Art Night.  Enjoy the weekend.

Americans for Financial Reform is sponsoring a forum on the proposed financial reform legislation.

Join Americans for Financial Reform for a Town Hall meeting on financial reform at Quapaw Quarter United Methodist Church at 1601 S, Louisiana on Thursday, April 8 at 6:30 PM.

Legislation addressing our financial system is now on the floor of the senate.  Let Congress know that you want them to protect Main Street and not the interests of big Wall Street bankers.

Panelists include:  Rev Steve Copley, Chair, Interfaith Committee for Worker Justice; Ricky Belk, Secretary-Treasurer of the Arkansas AFL-CIO; and Hank Klein, former president of the Arkansas Federal Credit Union and founder of Arkansans Against Abusive Payday Lending.

For more information, call Neil Sealy at Arkansas Community Organizations at 501-376-7151.

Big Money lobbyists are working feverishly to keep financial reforms from happening.   Although bankers don’t have as much  manufactured grass-roots support as the health care industry lobby, and it’s virtually impossible to drive the public into a frenzy of fear over bank regulations (where’s the death panel in that?), they have the money, and they have the attention of the people in power.  It will take strong grassroots attention and support to keep financial reform alive.

The New Mexico House of Representatives voted today to move up to $5 billion of the state’s money to community banks and credit unions.  The move comes in response to consumer/voter outrage against larger financial institutions, and is seen as an attempt to encourage reform.  Some credit the Huffington Post’s Move Your Money campaign for getting the ball rolling.

According to the Huffington Post:

New Mexico State Representatives Brian Egolf (D-Santa Fe) and Timothy Keller (D-Bernalillo) sponsored the bill, HB 66. Rep. Eglof told the Huffington Post in January that the legislation would “direct the New Mexico Department of Finance and Administration to ‘give a preference to a community bank to act as the fiscal agent of the general fund operating cash depository account.’”

This is what it is going to take to get the banks to pay attention to demand for reform.  Money will talk.  The Arkansas Legislature should take notes.