{"id":189531,"date":"2010-03-15T21:00:00","date_gmt":"2010-03-16T02:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2010\/03\/15\/dodds-bill-is-out-and-i-think-its-a-sellout-but\/"},"modified":"2010-03-15T21:00:00","modified_gmt":"2010-03-16T02:00:00","slug":"dodds-bill-is-out-and-i-think-its-a-sellout-but","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2010\/03\/15\/dodds-bill-is-out-and-i-think-its-a-sellout-but\/","title":{"rendered":"Dodd&#8217;s Bill Is Out, and I Think It&#8217;s A Sellout, but \u2026\u2026\u2026"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>You see, it <a href=\"http:\/\/online.wsj.com\/article\/SB10001424052748703780204575120393616196162.html?mod=WSJ_WSJ_US_News_5\">places the Consumer Financial Protection Agency (CFPA) in the Federal Reserve<\/a>, which means that a small regulatory firm intended to defend the consumer is in a really big organization that is intended to defend banks.<\/p>\n<p>Remember:  Consumer protection was the Fed&#8217;s bailiwick in the run up to the, so this <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">clearly<\/span> appears to be a sell out, only, as <a href=\"http:\/\/krugman.blogs.nytimes.com\/2010\/03\/15\/a-different-kind-of-housing-puzzle\/\">an equally confused Paul Krugman notes<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote style=\"color: rgb(0, 0, 153);\"><p>\u2026But here\u2019s my puzzle: the bill, as I understand it, calls for an independent Consumer Protection Agency, with a director directly appointed by the president, but one that is \u201choused\u201d at the Fed.<\/p>\n<p>\u2026\u2026\u2026<\/p>\n<p>Does it mean that the staff will all be long-term Fed employees? Then that would, to at least some degree, compromise the agency\u2019s independence. Or is it purely a cosmetic issue? If so, who exactly is being diverted?<\/p>\n<p>I\u2019m not prejudging this \u2014 there\u2019s a lot to look at. But I\u2019m puzzled.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>What it does have is:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/voices.washingtonpost.com\/economy-watch\/2010\/03\/dodds_bill_includes_volcker_ru.html\">The Volker Rule.<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/voices.washingtonpost.com\/economy-watch\/2010\/03\/dodds_bill_includes_volcker_ru.html\">The ability to sue credit ratings agencies.<\/a><\/li>\n<li>He is insisting that the bureau (downgraded from agency) would be, &#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.sfgate.com\/cgi-bin\/article.cgi?f=\/c\/a\/2010\/03\/15\/BURN1CG2P8.DTL\">Autonomous from the Fed<\/a>,&#8221; and just co-located.<\/li>\n<li>Resolution authority for large institutions.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>I think that the real question here is two fold, transparency and independence.<\/p>\n<p>As to transparency, the question is whether Freedom of Information Act laws apply to this organization as they do to other regulatory institutions, or is it a paranoid secret black hole like the Federal Reserve.<\/p>\n<p>As to independence, the question is whether it gets to, under the limitations of civil service regulations, hire its own staff, and draw up its own budget.<\/p>\n<p>If it does not have this authority, it is a paper tiger.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>You see, it places the Consumer Financial Protection Agency (CFPA) in the Federal Reserve, which means that a small regulatory firm intended to defend the consumer is in a really big organization that is intended to defend banks. Remember: Consumer protection was the Fed&#8217;s bailiwick in the run up to the, so this clearly appears &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[998,1004,1020,985],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-189531","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-congress","category-finance","category-legislation","category-regulation"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/189531"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=189531"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/189531\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=189531"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=189531"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=189531"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}