The So-Called
"Wall Street Reform and
Consumer Protection Act of 2009":
Deception, Lies, and the
Government Takeover
by
Victor Edward Swanson,
Publisher
The Hologlobe Press
Postal Box 5263
Cheboygan, Michigan 49721
www.hologlobepress.com
July 23, 2010
(Version 2)
(Draft version)
On July 21, 2010, Barack Obama, as the U.S. President, signed into law the federal act known as the Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2009, and it is another piece of legislation that I feel should be repealed as soon as possible--every bit of it. Even before the federal act would be made a real law, I was promoting the idea that the act when it was a bill should not be made an act, and I did that through my document entitled Barack Obama's Banks: Congress, Give Me the Power, and I Will Control All of Them (which can be reached by using the link at the end of this document). Around the time, the act was being created, I was hearing news about what bad things the developing act was going to have, but such people as high-ranking Democrats in Washington, D.C., such as Barack Obama, were promoting the idea that it was necessary for the country, necessary to stop a potential crash from every happening again, and necessary for so many other reasons, and, of course, so much of the talk by those Democrats was nonsense, and while the act was being put together, few persons really knew what was fully in it, and when it was voted on in the U.S. Congress, few members of Congress knew what was in it, since they did not read it, and, anyway, while it was being made it was not an easy document to read since it was made up of about two-thousand pages and, as with many federal acts, language in the bill linked to other existing acts so a person could not really read it straight through and understand it. After the bill was passed by the U.S. Congress--the final version was passed by the U.S. House of Representatives on June 30, 2010, and the final version ws passed by the U.S. Senate on July 15, 2010--citizens started to read it fully and study it and determine what the bill would do to the country, and there was a lot of bad news for the citizens of the country, and that bad news was not being reported by many of the reporters and such in the main media. Since the Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2009 was made a law, I started to watch for and collect information about the bad things that what I will call "experts" were finding in the act, and this document contains some of the information that I have come across, and I provide it to you so that you can be aware of bad things in the act and can tell others about the bad things in the act, and from time to time, I will probably update this document, doing that when more information about the act shows up.
* * * Thoughts to Keep in Mind * * *
Here is something that should never be forgotten. U.S. Senator Chris Dodd (a Democrat related to Connecticut) made this statement on the floor of the U.S. Senate on Thursday, July 15, 2010, the day on which the U.S. Congress finished passing the Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act: "...Ah, it is not a perfect bill. I'll be the first to admit that. We don't know ultimately how well the ideas we've incorporated here will achieve the results we all desire. It'll take the next economic crisis--as certainly as it will come--to determine whether or not the provisions of this bill will actually provide this generation or the next generation of regulators with the tools necessary to minimize the effects of that crisis when it happens...."
On July 15, 2010, U.S. Senator Harry Reid (a Democrat related to Nevada) made some comments about the Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2009 after a procedural vote to end debate on the bill had passed in the U.S. Senate. One thing that Harry Reid said is, "...Those [such as Republicans] who vote 'no' are standing with the same bankers who gambled with our homes and economic security in the first place...." That statement is a lie, since it was not the bankers who "gambled with our homes and economic security in the first place"--government officials, especially Democrats, did.
Barack Obama made some comments about the Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2009 on the day that the bill finally passed through the U.S. Congress and on the day that Barack Obama signed the bill into law. On July 15, 2010, for example, Barack Obama said, "...What members of both parties realize is that we can't allow a financial crisis like this one, ah, that we just went through to happen again. This reform will prevent that from happening...." And on July 21, 2010, for instance, Barack Obama noted, "...Finally, because of this law, the American people will never be asked again to foot the bill for Wall Street's mistakes. There will be no more tax-funded bailouts...." On both days, Barack Obama did was is commonplace for Barack Obama--lied. (You should see the section for "July 15, 2010" in my document entitled Nonsense Statements and Quotations of Barack Obama, which can be reached by using the link at the end of this document.)
* * * Frank Beckmann interviews John Brelau * * *
Television news and television talk shows do a terrible job of pointing out how bad the laws that Barack Obama is helping to pass are, and here is proof--I present in text form a portion of an interview done on The Frank Beckmann Show for WJR-AM on Monday, July 19, 2010. Frank Beckmann is the host, of course, of the radio porogram, and Frank Beckmann was talking with John Berlau, the director of Competitive Enterprise Institute Center for Investors and Entrepreneurs. The topic was the Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2009, which was going to be signed into law in two days (on July 21, 2010). I present three portions of the interview.
Here is one portion of the interview:
Frank Beckmann: "...Ah, they've been pouring through this package. Don't know if they've done reading it or not. John, good morning. How are, ya?"
John Berlau: "No. I, I'm not done reading it, and, dah, I, ah, I haven't, dah. I doubt many members of Congress have either. Ah, but I have read quite a bit of it. And it's, ah, very disheartening."
Frank Beckmann: "Why is that? Why, why, why are you disheartened by this?"
John Berlau: "Well, as you mentioned, I mean, it regulates everything but the kitchen sink. And, in this case, the kit...you have a kitchen sink that was part of, part of the problem--part, part of the subprimes, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, that, dah, were even more involved in, in the subprime mess and more of a prime cause than originally thought, buying, ah, subprimes back as far as 1993 and actually mislabeling subprimes as prime."
Frank Beckmann: "Well, that's, ah, they, they had plenty of assistance in all of that by Moody's and the other ratings services that, that were, ah, rating these, these tranches of subprime mortgages that were being, ah, packaged up--they, they rated them triple-A."
Here is another portion:
Frank Beckmann: "...John, the, the argument on behalf of this financial-regulatory bill is this--We saw what happened, we didn't have enough safeguards in place. Now they will be with this bill. We have government oversight of this. It will never happen again. We're not gonna to see risky behavior by the banks. And, and it, it can't happen again because of this."
John Berlau: "Well, actually, it, you know, not only does it leave Fannie and Freddie, um, ah, totally, um, unregulated or, or changed...the prime causes, which means they can take on additional leverage of what the private sector, um, will be restricted from, they're also basically institutionalizes bailouts, ah, puts in a mechanism where, ah, where other financial institutions, other insurance companies...are going to be taxed to pay for the failure of the next AIG or the next high-roller with this orderly liquidation authority."
Notice that two main points were brought up. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which were instrumental in the economic crash of 2008, are not really dealt with in the Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. Also, the federal government will be able to bailout financial institutions, and that means the federal government will be able to take control of more of the businesses in the private sector.
Remember: The federal government, for instance, now has ownership in General Motors and Chrysler, and it is a communist country or a fascist country that has the federal government taking over the ownership or control of businesses.
Later in the interview, John Berlau said, "...I mean, this bill has some scary powers, where the government can even seize a firm not even asking for a bailout...."
Note: You can see www.cei.org to learn more about the Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act.
* * * Tim Geithner is on Charlie Rose * * *
On Wednesday, July 21, 2010, Tim Geithner was a guest on the television show known as Charlie Rose, and, in fact, he was the only guest on the program, which is hosted by Charlie Rose and is shown on weeknights on PBS-associated stations. I saw portions of the program on the main channel and a subchannel for WTVS-TV (actually, 56.1 and 56.2), and I could only put up with portions of the program for a short while, before turning away for a bit and then returning, since Tim Geithner passed along, for example, lies and fluff. For this document, I do pass along some of Tim Geithner's comments in text form.
"I fundamentally don't understand the bases for opposition. Again, you know, anybody who looks at wht this country went through, what this country is still living with in terms of the scares of this crisis, I cannot look at that system and say it was, it was, it did what it was supposed to do. You know, it brought the economy to the edge of collapse. It caused enormous damage not just to, to the financial system but ta well-managed companies, well-managed banks, ah, well-managed investments, and to people that were very careful--didn't borrow too much--it did a huge amount of damage. I think there's no credible way you could look at that system and say we didn't need comprehensive sweeping reform. Now, people have different views about how do we do it. But the proponents of this bill decided that they would run a strategy of trying to slow it down, stretch it out, carve out as many sections of the industry from the bill as possible. Ah, no surprise they did that...." [Remember: Instrumental in the econonomic crisis of 2008 was the federal government--laws related to Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, and there is no proof the economic system of the country was going to collapse, but since 2008, the federal government--mostly the Barack Obama administration---has passed laws that spend trillions of dollars, and now, indeed, the country is on the verge collapse.]
"There's nothing remarkable in that. That's the story of any administration--Republican or Democratic. Ah, but again, loo, look, look at the crisis we face. You know, we had a, a economy that was falling off the cliff in total freefall. Businesses stopped! Businesses cut deeply into the basic bone of their productive capacity, fired--let go--millions of Americans, because they were so panicked about the possibility of deep enduring losses that are basic businesses. They were out of--it was lights out for the American economy because of these basic failures of fundamental protection and oversight in many ways...." [Remember: The crisis hit in late summer 2008, and then there was the election of November 2008, in which a Barack Obama was elected to the office of the Presidency of the United States of America, and many businesses quickly came to understand that Barack Obama was at least a socialist--and maybe a communist--and were hearing about some of the proposals in the form of laws that Barack Obama was going to push through, which were bad for businesses and the economy, and businesses took action--they stopped hiring, they held on to money, they decided to take on no more debt (such as through loans that could help them expand), et cetera.]
"As you'd expect, they [businesses] want as much leverage as they can--power and influence as they can--to make sure they can operate with lower taxes, lower regulation in the future, our job, though, again is to try to do what's we think is the best for the broader public interest for the economy as a whole. And I think in this bill, you saw that broader public interest prevail...."
During the interview, the topic of Freddie Mac anc Fannie Mae came up, and it was Charlie Rose who brought up the topic of how the act did not address the problems of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, but Tim Geithner promised that the Barack Obama administration would soon address those two government-run entities in the near future, but, for instance, the head of the Barack Obama administration--Barack Obama--cannot be trusted, as can be seen through the evidence presented in my document entitled Nonsense Statements and Quotations of Barack Obama, which can be reached by using the link at the end of this document..
Remember: In 2009, Tim Geithner was appointed the head of the U.S. Department of Treasury by Barack Obama, even though Tim Geithner had cheated on his taxes several years earlier. (For more information, you should see the document titled THE CRUD AROUND BARACK OBAMA: My Rule--"Like Minds Get Together", which can be reached by using the link at the end of this document.)
* * * Frank Beckmann interviews Damian Kassab * * *
On Thursday, July 22, 2010, Frank Beckmann of The Frank Beckmann Show, which is aired by WJR-AM on weekdays, interviewed Damian Kassab (once a CEO for Warren Bank, which was based in Michigan) on the show, and the topic of the interview was the Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2009. I discovered during the interview that Damian Kassab was once a CEO with a bank based in Michigan--Warren Bank; it had been on October 2, 2009, that the State of Michigan closed down the Warren Bank and put it in receivership with the FDIC, and, later, the assets of Warren Bank had become a part of Huntington National Bank. After the interview took place, I transcribed most of the interview, and this section contains much of the interview in text form:
Frank Beckmann: "...And the collapse that led to, the collapse in the derivative market and the housing market that led to the economic problems we face today were not foreseen by the very regulators who were charged with watching the system, Wall Street, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, et cetera, et cetera. Ah, the person who really was in charge of watching that at the New York Federal Reserve Office was Tim Geithner. He never saw this coming. Ah, yet the same people who are now going to oversee with even more powers this industry are the same ones who didn't foresee the last meltdown in the economy coming. But how is this going to impact all of us because this is a huge bill, well over twenty-two-hundred pages? And even Chris Dodd, the Connecticut Senator, who championed it along with Barney Frank, said we got to pass this thing to see what's in it. Well, people are beginning to see what is in it, and, ah, questions are being asked. For instance--for instance--ah, the President said there would be no more 'tax-funded bailout, period.' But studies by even The Associated Press reveal the FDIC can borrow taxpayer money from the Treasury temporarily to help cover the cost of winding down a large firm. The government can decide when a firm is in trouble and simply shut it down under this bill. Other large banks would have to pay the Treasury back on, ah, ah, over, over time. Credit-rating firms are saying they no longer will allow the issuers of debt-backed securities to put their ratings for them in public-sale documents. The reason--they're now worried that this law is going to make it easier to sue rating agencies. It, here's one of the things that happened--a little known fact about the, ah, the subprime mortgage market and that meltdown--Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, who are not impacted, by the way, at all--they're not regulated at all under this bill--they owned forty percent of those toxic subprime loans--forty percent of them were Fannie and Freddie--and they're not covered. Okay? So, ah, as, as you take a look at the, the tranches of these mortgages that were being sold by Fannie and Freddie, they were being rated, they, they were instruments to be rated and then traded, and the rating agencies were giving them the highest ratings--triple A--and they turned out to be worthless, because the people who got these subprimes couldn't pay them back, and they were defaulting on them, and so the triple-A rating now under the new regulatory bill could bring a lawsuit against one of these ratings agencies, who may have been misled by Fannie and Freddie all along on the strength on the securities that they were rating. Now, Fannie and Freddie go to the rating agencies--convinces them that they are safe securities, turns out they're not--and the ratings agency can get sued under this bill. Well, let's leave.... How does this affect us--you and me--when we go to your local bank? I mean, we use our debit cards, we use our bank cards, ah, ah, so much, we have checking accounts. How is it going to affect us? Let's check in with a local banker, who's been on the show with us before, former CEO of the Warren Bank, Damain Kassab, joining us on The Frank Beckmann Show. How are you?"
Damain Kassab: "Good morning, Frank. I'm well."
Frank Beckmann: "...You, you know this industry as well as anyone and, dah, you can give us a dispassionate view of what's gonna happen here now. I'm sure you've watched this very closely."
Damian Kassab: "Ah, yes. Obviously, I haven't read all twenty-two-hundred pages."
Frank Beckmann: "Well, don't, don't feel like the Lone Ranger. Neither has anyone in Congress."
Damian Kassab: "Ah, I, I would also challenge your, ah, listeners to call in if anyone has. This is a massive bill. I don't that anyone quite understands the consequences in totality. But, dah, I think that this is going to have a serious impact on, ah, community banks especially and especially banks in Michigan. Ah, Steve Forbes was on TV the other day on CNBC, and he said it was the death knell for community banks, and the, the reason primarily is because of these burdensome regulations now that are being imposed, which can be absorbed by large banks but will be difficult for smaller banks...."
Frank Beckmann: "What, what do you mean?"
Damian Kassab: "Well, for instance, ah, ah, banks are now going to be required to have much higher, ah, capital ratios. So, how do you do that? For a big bank, they go out a sell stock. And, and there's capital available on some of these large markets. There's no capital available in Michigan for small banks!"
Frank Beckmann: "All they have is the deposits and..."
Damian Kassab: "That's right. So, as a result, how do you get that ratio in check? You can't go out there if you're a, have a billion dollars in deposits and you have a hundred-million dollars in capital, you can't just go out and get fifty-million dollars in capital. In Michigan, you're gonna find assessor*, you're gonna have to shrink your balance sheet, you're gonna have to shrink into those ratios...."
Frank Beckmann: "And do you do that?" [* = I know not what this word should be, but it sounded like "assessor."]
Damian Kassab: "Well, you give away deposits. And where do those deposits go? They go to the big banks. And where do those deposits go when they go to the big banks? They don't get deployed here in Michigan, they get deployed across state lines or, or across country lines, you know, ah, ah, in, in international markets. So, ah, the small banks are a significant disadvantage under this regulatory scam."
Frank Beckmann: "Hum. Is, is that perhaps the goal of all this? I mean, I, I noted there were some, ah, some big bankers who were in the front row at the signing ceremony yesterday--the CEO of Citigroup, top executives from Bank of New York Mellon, from Barclays--a lot of big bankers there."
Damian Kassab: "Let me, if I can't [can], read two sentences from The Wall Street Journal two days ago. Ah, 'The financial overhaul bill that will be signed into law by President Barack Obama on Wednesday won't address one of the most far-reaching consequences of the recent crisis: Market power is concentrating in the hands of the nation's largest banks. Fortified by infusions of taxpayer capital and takeovers of other large institutions killed or wounded in the crisis, a handful of hulking banks is merging from the mess to dominate everything from mortgages to checking accounts to small-business loans.' Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. That is absolutely happening! And I think it's...not only, ah, ah, a result of this regulation, it's an impodent result. I, I think that the administration wants to see a Canadian-like system, where you only have a handful of banks and, dah, it's easier to manipulate the money markets that way and to regulate them as a matter of fact. But what is does is reduces competition. You can't go down the street, to can't shop for a, a better interest rates or better, ah, fee structures at your bank, you're stuck with a big bank and that's going to hurt consumers."
Frank Beckmann: "Well, how, how does it hurt consumers? Why wouldn't it be better for me to be protected by one of those large banks that I know can't fail, versus a, ah, smaller community bank?"
Damian Kassab: "It's like any other business. When you have very little competition, ah, there's very little disincentive for these banks to lower fees, ah, as an example. Um, eh, eh, I, I think what's going to happen is, ah, because the capital ratios being so high, you're gonna have to see--where, where do they get their profits from? If, in my scenario, where you'd have a hundred-million dollars in capital and a billion dollar bank of deposits, if you have to raise a fifty-million dollars in capital, that's going to hurt your return on equity and, ah, hurt the bottom line. So, I think that comes out of higher interest rates to consumers and comes out of higher fees for consumers. Now, I know there are some caps in this bill in, in terms of debit cards and the like, but then they'll just get you on, ah, overdraft protection or notary, ah, fees or what have you--the normal cost of goin' in a bank--and, dah, they've, 'cause they've got to generate those profits for their shareholders."
Frank Beckmann: "Yeah. And, and, dah, the, we will see higher costs for checking accounts, et cetera?"
Damian Kassab: "I, I believe so. Lack of competition, eh, eh, you know, that's, that's what always results in those scenarios."
Frank Beckmann: "So, the consumer will pay for it in the long run?"
Damian Kassab: "They, they've got to. And I also think that you're going to see a disastrous result for small businesses, because the big banks aren't like community banks, they really, truly don't do a lot of small-business lending. They'll tell you they do! But they really don't. It's gonna be more difficult for small businesses to get loans. This, this is a re, result of the tightening of the credit by raising more capital, by the necessity to deploy more, more capital, you have to, as I said, raise that--and a big bank can do it--or you have to shrink--and when you shrink, you can do less in terms of loans. So, ah, you have less loans. You're gonna have higher interest rates for those loans. And that doesn't bode well for small business, ah, which, of course, translates into, ah, I think a disaster for the economy."
Frank Beckmann: "You know, the other thing that strikes me--big government is gonna have huge powers. The Federal Reserve is going to decide what banks are in trouble and, and need to be melted down basically, and, and this is a, I, I don't, I hope people realize the unprecedented power this is giving to the government to decide who stays in business."
Damian Kassab: "Ah, it's amazing. They pick the winners and losers. This is one step away from nationalizing the banks."
Frank Beckmann: "Well, we'll, ah, keep our fingers crossed that, dah, that our checking fees won't go up too much, but this is going to impact us in every way, and, and, dah, we haven't even gotten into--we stuck with the banks here on this--but, ah, the way we are going to pay more with various retailers who have got lay-away plans, credit plans--they're, they're impacted by this, too."
Damian Kassab: "Absolutely. This is going to reach across the economy."
That covers the interview. During the interview Damian Kassab read some text from an article that had appeared in The Wall Street Journal on July 20, 2010, and after I did research, I found that the article was entitled "A City Feels the Squeeze in the Age of Mega Banks" (Fitzpatrick, Dan, and Robin Sidel. "A City Feels the Squeeze in the Age of Mega Banks." The Wall Street Journal, 20 July 2010.). Here are two other lines from that article: "Bank America, J.P. Morgan, and Wells Fargo now have 33% of all U.S. deposits, up from 21% in mid-2007--the fastest shift of such a large chunk of deposits in U.S. history." and "The three huge banks made 57% of all home mortgages in the first quarter, up from 28% in 2008, according to Inside Mortgage Finance, and industry newsletter." You are encouraged to see that article to see more of what it presents.
* * * A Review of Concepts * * *
A number of themes from the Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2009 have been presented in this document, and those themes show not only that the act is a bad law but also that those who enacted it are bad, such as Barack Obama (and you can learn who voted "yes" for the Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Acto fo 2009 by reading the document entitled Enemies of the United States of America: Politicians Who Have Hurt You and Your Family by Voting "Yes" on Bad Federal Bills, which can be reached by using the link at the end of this document). The Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2009 is yet another federal act that Barack Obama has pushed into law to change the structure of the United States of America--from a government defined and constrained by a document entitled The U.S. Constitution to a government defined by who knows what and constrained by who knows what, seemingly the whim of the mind of Barack Obama. Certainly, it is evident Barack Obama, through the Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2009, is going to lead to the downfall of community banks, lead to increase fees that individuals have to pay for banking services, lead to government takeover of more financial institutions, lead to more failure in the housing market because the creation of more defective subprime mortgage loans, lead to....
On Friday, July 23, 2010, Barack Obama, in essence, praised himself for having been involved with making the Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2009 a law, as can be seen in one statement that he made: "...I want to talk about the progress that we made on three fronts this week, as we work to repair the damage to our economy from this recession and build a stronger foundation for the future. So taken together, we made enormous progress on Wall Street reform, on making sure that we're eliminating waste and abuse in government, and in providing immediate assistance to people who are out there lookin' for work...." What you have in this quotation is more lies and foolishness. For example, ask yourself--What did Barack Obama do to eliminate waste and abuse in government? Show me what it did! Show me, for example, a law that he helped pass that helps eliminate waste and abuse in government! Also, ask yourself--What "enormous progress on Wall Street reform" does Barack Obama have in mind? This document shows what bad his "reform" is gonig to do to the country, so you should wonder what Barack Obama was thinking about when he said the words "enormous progress on Wall Street reform."
Bibliography:
"Timothy Geithner." Wikipedia.com, 16 July 2010.
Fitzpatrick, Dan, and Robin Sidel. "A City Feels the Squeeze in the Age of Mega Banks." The Wall Street Journal, 20 July 2010. (http://www.wsj.com....)
Titus, Michelle. "Financial Overhaul Bill Passes As Reid States 'Wall Street Isn't Going to Reform Itself.'" Before It's News, 15 July 2010, 12:24. (http://beforeitsnews.com....)
###
Note: The first version of this document was posted on the Internet on July 23, 2010.
For further reading, you should see the document
entitled Barack Obama's Banks: Congress,
Give Me the Power, and I Will Control All
of Them, which can be reached by using this
link: Banks.
For further reading, you should see the document
entitled The Economic Crash of Countries
is Because of Liberalism--It is not because
of Conservatism and Capitalism, which can
be reached through this link: Crash.
For further reading, you should see the document
entitled THOUGHTS AND PIECES OF
LOGIC for the individual woman and the
individual man, which can be reached by
hitting this link: Logic.
For further reading, you should see the document
entitled Political Lessons for the Individual Woman
and the Individual Man in the United States of
America, which can be reached by hitting this
link: Lessons.
For further reading, you should see the document
entitled Nonsense Statements and Quotations
of Barack Obama, which can be reached at
this link: Quotes.
For further reading, you should see the document
entitled THOUGHTS AND STATEMENTS
ABOUT THE UNITED STATES OF
AMERICA for the individual woman and the
individual man, which can be reached by
hitting this link: Thoughts.
For further reading, you should see the document
entitled National Health Care and Mass Failure:
The Reasons it is a Dead Issue, which can be
reached at this link: Health.
For further reading, you should see the document
entitled Never Forget These Media "Darlings" ? --
A Guide for the Individual in the United
States of America, which can be reached by
using this link: Media.
For further reading, you should see the document
entitled THE CRUD AROUND BARACK
OBAMA: My Rule--"Like Minds Get Together",
which can be reached by using this link: Crud.
For further reading, you should see the document
entitled Enemies of the United States of
America: Politicians Who Have Hurt You
and Your Family by Voting "Yes" on Bad
Federal Bills, which can be reached by using
this link: Enemies.###