It's been about a month since financial reform has taken the spotlight and I still can't say if I like or dislike the bill. That's because I still have no clue what's in the bill. What I have watched over the last month is nothing short of a pathetic display of platitudes by politicians on both sides and a complete lack of knowledge by newscasters.
Both sides are making a series of claims and attacks. What I still can't find is much detail of what's in the bill. I hear a lot about "cracking down on Wall Street". I don't know what that means. What are the specific crackdowns? I don't know because politicians aren't saying and newscasters aren't challenging.
I watched Alan Colmes on Megyn Kelly's show yesterday defending the Democrats' taking money from Goldman Sachs. He defended them by saying that while they took the money, they are now "cracking down on them". How are they cracking down on "them"? I don't know because Colmes didn't say and Kelly never asked. She asked if this bill would crack down on them but Colmes never gave any specifics in the bill that would crack down on them.
President Obama says he wants to regulate derivatives. I'm still not sure what those derivative regulations are. I do know that Fannie/Freddie aren't included in the regulations. That's a bad thing but frankly, I'm not confident they'd be regulated properly anyway.
So far, all we've had is a debate at the margins. Both sides are making accusations with few specifics. How can anyone fairly judge the bill if no one can debate its specifics?
You don't know?
ReplyDeleteMaybe the answer is:
If you don't see it, there is likely a reason why.
But far be it for me to suggest that this administration has EVER hid anything NOT worth hiding...
Sigh, by now it should be obvious that there are two types of people in Washington:
ReplyDeleteThose who are afraid to challenge the Banking Industry,
and those who don't want to challenge the Banking Industry.
If we're going to do something about this, its going to take a concentrated effort by a large number of Americans to find lawmakers who don't take money from Wall Street. Voting for people the media will endlessly declare "not a serious candidate" because they don't have a lot of donations from the Jamie Dimons and Lloyd Blankfein's of the world and don't take advice from people like Larry Summers.
Its like that cliche from martial arts movies: when the student is ready, the teacher will appear.