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Occupy The SEC, one of Occupy Wall Street’s offshoots, has filed a lawsuit in hopes of forcing regulators to (finally) finalize the Volker Rule – a provision within the Dodd-Frank Act of 2010. Three years later many of the rules that Congress punted to regulators in the law have not even been made let alone enforced.
On Feb. 26, 2013, attorney Tewary, a member of Occupy the SEC, filed a lawsuit against the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and other bank regulators to compel them to obey the law and finalize the Volcker Rule. That’s the part of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform Act that bars banks gambling with depositors’ money. Dodd-Frank mandated that the regulators, including the Federal Reserve, Comptroller of the Currency, FDIC, SEC and Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), complete this rule by July 2012.
They have not.
Since Dodd-Frank passed there have been many violations of a would be Volker Rule most famously JP Morgan’s London Whale incident. The lawsuit notes that plaintiffs, as customers of JP Morgan and Wells Fargo, are threatened by the regulator’s inaction on implementing the Dodd-Frank rules.
This is not the first action by Occupy The SEC which seems to fall into the more liberal technocratic wing of Occupy Wall Street. The group offered a 400 page comment letter during the comment period of the rule making process. Not surprisingly it seems to have been ignored. As this lawsuit likely will be.
And of course, given there is no real punishment for Wall Street bankers breaking the law one is forced to wonder what the rush is to enact a rule that violators will incur no substantive penalty for breaking anyway. Nonetheless, the lawsuit may embarrass the regulators into some action. Occupy The SEC may be one of the final experiments of trying to “work within the system” vis a vis Wall Street and has yielded predictably nebulous results thus far. This should not be put on the activists, no one can win a rigged game. The only way to win at three card monte is not to play.
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How can there be when Wall Street bankers own the lawmakers?
What do you know about their lawyers, where are the funds coming to pay the lawyers?
I linked this article on another thread yesterday, but it’s relevant here too. It’s about “Legal Imperialism”. “Law” is another arm of enforcement for empires. It trumps domestic law & international law. A commenter yesterday pointed out that the imperial power (U.S.) is making it up as it goes along, a valid point. My response was that’s how all laws are made, they don’t spring full blown & written in advance.
It’s difficult to understand what is going on in U.S. courts today unless you understand that domestic law is not the criterion, it’s the new imperial law that sets the “standard.”
The only problem with that idea is that unless you are a hermit you are automatically a player.
Ever paid taxes, had a bank account, a job or accommodation? Bingo! What the banks do affects you every day.
I guess the game you mean is not the one with the banks, but the one run by the politicians on behalf of the banks.
They will be told they have no standing.
Is OWS-SEC suing as a group of individuals or as a corporate (or other) legal entity?
Whatever the case, humiliation would be nice, although I’m convinced that sociopaths are pretty much impervious to things like embarrassment or humiliation. Such is the nature of being a sociopath.
“It’s difficult to understand what is going on in U.S. courts today unless you understand that domestic law is not the criterion, it’s the new imperial law that sets the “standard.””
We have seen this type of “imperial law.” It was embraced”by Germany and turned the nation fascist. The rest is history our political leaders forget embracing situation ethics, after 911.
Like I told Feinstein, if you think fascism can’t happen here in America, you are ignorant of history and human nature….
It is here just as it grabbed Germany, under the pretense of protecting the homeland? Corporate fascism
The purpose of the suit seems to be to make a similar point.
LINK
This piece is worth a look.
I have a few problems with the way the thing is put together, most especially the nerve-ripping “music.” Moreover, I would have kept the negative imagery to an absolute minimum, if not eliminated it entirely. (Both elements greatly distract from the message, in my opinion.) However, assuming you’re able to overlook the gimmickry, the content is pretty solid.
You can also find the piece by plugging “Temujin Doran Obey” into the YouTube machine.
And here’s an odd coupling, if I’ve ever seen one. Definitely merits some attention, however.
Corporate fascism is redundant. Corporatism is fascism.
“Fascism should rightly be called Corporatism, as it is the merger of corporate and government power.”
Benito Mussolini
Corporations were the prime factor in German, Italian and US fascist movements, to the point of planning a domestic coup d’etat. That coup was derailed by a man you never heard of in your history books. Who in his later years, taught “War is a racket”.
“Occupy The SEC may be one of the final experiments of trying to “work within the system” vis a vis Wall Street and has yielded predictably nebulous results thus far.”
Working within the system to demonstrate the system does not work is a necessary step in legitimizing working without the system.
Very nicely said, thank you, and absolutely true.