reform
Chewing on Dodd-Frank spaghetti
July 21, 2011: 3:35 PM ETToday is Dodd-Frank's birthday.
Not that you forgot, but now it's time to celebrate with a late lunch of regulatory reform spaghetti, courtesy of the banking team at Deloitte:
Just 206 items in the 2,000-page-plus legislation are awaiting next steps, the Deloitte chart shows. The thing where the Securities and Exchange Commission has been charged with implementing this massive piece of legislation in a hurry at a time when its budget is being cut makes all the sense in the world, of course.
"The crush of things they have to do at the SEC just adds to the cost of doing business," says an executive at an investment adviser bemused by the length of the registration process for new exchange-traded products. "But we have a lot of respect for the people down there because the pressure on them must just be immense."
Even so, it's clear that the regulatory mechanism, which didn't exactly shine during the bubble and the 2008 bust, gets more bent out of shape by the day. It's enough to dull your appetite.
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Housing fixes could hit house prices
Mending the broken U.S. housing finance system won't be painless.
Costs on some mortgages will rise this fall as part of the Obama administration's proposal to reform housing finance, including the bailed-out mortgage investors Fannie Mae (FNMA) and Freddie Mac (FMCC). That could add to the pressure on house prices, which are already headed lower after last year's brief tax incentive-aided bounce.
The administration wants to shrink the size of loans eligible MORE
Colin Barr - Feb 11, 2011 12:16 PM ET -
Sheriff Volcker leaves Wall Street untamed
Paul Volcker is riding into the sunset, but it's just as well. Any hope the Obama administration might clean up the financial Wild West faded long ago.
It was around this time last year that Volcker, the former Federal Reserve chief who was a major figure in Obama's 2008 presidential run, reemerged after a year in the policy wilderness. He stood with Obama at a White House lectern and announced a MORE
Colin Barr - Jan 6, 2011 3:47 PM ET -
A little advice for Obama at the half
Like any good coach, the president needs to make some halftime adjustments. Here are a few that will work.
By Harold Ford Jr., contributor
Legendary football coaches succeed in large part because of their ability to make halftime adjustments when their teams are losing. At the halftime of Obama's first term, our country is down -- and so is my party.
As America's head coach, President Obama needs to make some big and MORE
Scott Olster, editor - Nov 18, 2010 12:00 AM ETPosted in: Barack Obama, broadband, busines, Democrats, Economy, Harold Ford Jr., jobs, midterm, reform, regulations, Republicans, stimulus, taxes, unemployment -
Two important ratios the new Basel guidelines ignored
By going soft on the ratios most important to the solvency of banks in a future crisis, Basel III took the easy route on banking reform
By Eleanor Bloxham, contributor
The new Basel III rules increasing minimum equity requirements for banks will go into effect over the next decade. Two ratios, however, most important in a crisis, will only begin to be "observed" next year and the year after with implementation not MORE
Sep 13, 2010 2:25 PM ET -
Bank reform: Fake it 'til you make it
Much of the Dodd-Frank bill pushes the important decisions until years later. How to tame Wall Street in the meantime?
By Heidi N. Moore, contributor
World Cup soccer fans have become used to player theatrics, where a player who is so much as touched by a rival will immediately hit the turf and writhe around in the throes of completely manufactured agony, hoping to delay their usually inevitable loss.
Giant banks, it turns MORE
Jun 30, 2010 11:13 AM ET -
Little victories for state regulators
With the passage of new Wall Street reform, states will have some power to catch financial bad guys again.
By Heidi N. Moore, contributor
The Dodd-Frank financial reform bill (should it ever pass) is supposed to be a victory for the little guy. But what few people know is that it's also a victory for the little regulators.
Well, they're not really little; they're the nation's 50 or so state securities regulators. And MORE
Jun 29, 2010 5:18 PM ET -
Goldman profit estimates tumble
Is Wall Street's trading gold rush over?
You might well think so after perusing a report out Wednesday morning from Barclays Capital analyst Roger Freeman. He slashed his second-quarter earnings estimates on Goldman Sachs (GS) and cut his price target on the stock, which he rates hold, by $20 a share.
The reason? Trading profits have "hit an air pocket," he writes.
While all the bank and brokerage analysts have been mulling over MORE
Colin Barr - Jun 23, 2010 11:37 AM ET -
FDIC fund's woes deepen
Call your florist. The federal deposit insurance fund isn't coming home from the hospital any time soon, thanks to a sickly economy and the unstinting generosity of our leaders in Congress.
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. on Tuesday published the latest bleak prognosis for the fund it runs on behalf of bank depositors. The FDIC added a quarter to its estimate of the time it will take the fund to recover, MORE
Colin Barr - Jun 23, 2010 6:26 AM ET -
Visa, MasterCard rally on Durbin deal
Maybe the credit card crackdown won't hit Visa and MasterCard so hard after all.
Shares of the companies rose after Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill., said that members of the House financial reform conference committee agreed to changes on his plan to reform the markets for credit and debit card transactions.
One shift limits the Federal Reserve's authority to regulate the fees Visa (V) and MasterCard (MA) charge on their networks, MORE
Colin Barr - Jun 21, 2010 4:00 PM ET
