After the first week of the conference committee for Wall Street reform, I would call the verdict middling. Reformers have won some victories – all hedge funds and private equity firms will have to register with the SEC, credit rating agencies will be on the hook for standard liability for negligence, the Fed audit is [...]

Bank lobbyists and their defenders in Congress have argued that there’s no need for Section 716, the part of the derivatives title that forced the big banks to spin off their swaps trading desks into separately capitalized subsidiaries, is redundant and irrelevant, because a strengthened Volcker rule would accomplish the same goals. Never mind that [...]

Derivatives won’t officially come up in the Wall Street reform conference committee until next week. But we’re already seeing a lot of behind-the-scenes work. Blanche Lincoln, that tireless slayer of Wall Street dragons, has already softened her Section 716 reform to spin-off the lucrative swaps trading desk. Not everyone is totally worried by these changes; [...]

The fact that Tim Johnson would possibly replace Chris Dodd on the Senate Banking Committee is a testament to the recent axiom in Washington: “Everything is good news for the banks.” We’re about due for another round of inside stories about the banking lobby getting everything they want, so let me break them down for [...]

When we last left the House of Representatives, New Democrats were hijacking the financial reform bill because they wanted a vote that would gut the ability for state regulators to go after firms on local consumer protection laws. Last night, there was a breakthrough of sorts, which involved the House leadership basically giving the new [...]

The House Rules Committee released a very tight rule, with basically no amendments, for the regulatory reform effort being headed up by Barney Frank. This did not please members of the New Democrats, who are notoriously friendly with banking lobbyists. So they threatened to vote against the rule. This is from Congress Daily (sub. reqd.): [...]