Treasury Dept. Plan Would Give Fed Reserve Bank Wide New Power ( ReadJews)---- Federal Reserve Bank

March 29, 2008

Treasury Dept. Plan Would Give Fed Wide New Power

By EDMUND L. ANDREWS

WASHINGTON -- The Treasury Department will propose on Monday that

Congress give the Federal Reserve broad new authority to oversee

financial market stability, in effect allowing it to send SWAT teams

into any corner of the industry or any institution that might pose a

risk to the overall system.

The proposal is part of a sweeping blueprint to overhaul the nation's

hodgepodge of financial regulatory agencies, which many experts say

failed to recognize rampant excesses in mortgage lending until after

they set off what is now the worst financial calamity in decades.

Democratic lawmakers are all but certain to say the proposal does not

go far enough in restricting the kinds of practices that caused the

financial crisis. Many of the proposals, like those that would

consolidate regulatory agencies, have nothing to do with the turmoil

in financial markets. And some of the proposals could actually reduce

regulation.

According to a summary provided by the administration, the plan would

consolidate an alphabet soup of banking and securities regulators into

a powerful trio of overseers responsible for everything from banks and

brokerage firms to hedge funds and private equity firms.

While the plan could expose Wall Street investment banks and hedge

funds to greater scrutiny, it carefully avoids a call for tighter

regulation.

The plan would not rein in practices that have been linked to the

housing and mortgage crisis, like packaging risky subprime mortgages

into securities carrying the highest ratings.

The plan would give the Fed some authority over Wall Street firms, but

only when an investment bank's practices threatened the entire

financial system.

And the plan does not recommend tighter rules over the vast and

largely unregulated markets for risk sharing and hedging, like credit

default swaps, which are supposed to insure lenders against loss but

became a speculative instrument themselves and gave many institutions

a false sense of security.

Parts of the plan could reduce the power of the Securities and

Exchange Commission, which is charged with maintaining orderly stock

and bond markets and protecting investors. The plan would merge the

S.E.C. with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, which regulates

exchange-traded futures for oil, grains, currencies and the like.

The blueprint also suggests several areas where the S.E.C. should take

a lighter approach to its oversight. Among them are allowing stock

exchanges greater leeway to regulate themselves and streamlining the

approval of new products, even allowing automatic approval of

securities products that are being traded in foreign markets.

The proposal began last year as an effort by Henry M. Paulson Jr.,

secretary of the Treasury, to make American financial markets more

competitive against overseas markets by modernizing a creaky

regulatory system.

His goal was to streamline the different and sometimes clashing rules

for commercial banks, savings and loans and nonbank mortgage lenders.

"I am not suggesting that more regulation is the answer, or even that

more effective regulation can prevent the periods of financial market

stress that seem to occur every 5 to 10 years," Mr. Paulson will say

in a speech on Monday, according to a draft. "I am suggesting that we

should and can have a structure that is designed for the world we live

in, one that is more flexible."

Congress would have to approve almost every element of the proposal,

and Democratic leaders are already drafting their own bills to impose

tougher supervision over Wall Street investment banks, hedge funds and

the fast-growing market in derivatives like credit default swaps.

But Mr. Paulson's proposal for the Fed echoes ideas championed by

Representative Barney Frank, the Massachusetts Democrat who is

chairman of the House Financial Services Committee.

Both see the Fed overseeing risk across the entire financial spectrum,

but Mr. Frank is likely to favor a stronger Fed role and to subject

investment banks to the same rules that commercial banks now must

follow, especially for capital reserves.

The Treasury plan would let Fed officials examine the practices and

even the internal bookkeeping of brokerage firms, hedge funds,

commodity-trading exchanges and any other institution that might pose

a risk to the overall financial system.

That would be a significant expansion of the central bank's regulatory

mission.

When Fed officials agreed this month to rescue Bear Stearns, once the

nation's fifth-largest investment bank, they pointedly noted that the

Fed never had the authority to monitor its financial condition or

order it to bolster its protections against a collapse.

In two unprecedented moves, the Fed engineered a marriage between

JPMorgan Chase and Bear Stearns, lending $29 billion to JPMorgan to

prevent a Bear bankruptcy and a chain of defaults that might have

felled much of the financial system.

For the first time since the 1930s, the Fed also agreed to let

investment banks borrow hundreds of billions of dollars from its

discount window, an emergency lending program reserved for commercial

banks and other depository institutions.

But Mr. Paulson's proposal would fall well short of the kind of

regulation that Democrats have been proposing. Mr. Frank and other

senior Democrats have argued that investment banks and other lightly

regulated institutions now compete with commercial banks and should be

subject to similar regulation, including examiners who regularly pore

over their books and quietly demand changes in their practices.

In a recent interview, Mr. Frank said he realized the need for tighter

regulation of Wall Street firms after a meeting with Charles O. Prince

III, then chairman of Citigroup.

When Mr. Frank asked why Citigroup had kept billions of dollars in

"structured investment vehicles" off the firm's balance sheet, he

recalled, Mr. Prince responded that Citigroup, as a bank holding

company, would have been at a disadvantage because investment firms

can operate with higher debt and lower capital reserves.

Senator Charles E. Schumer, Democrat of New York, has taken a similar

stance.

"Commercial banks continue to be supervised closely, and are subject

to a host of rules meant to limit systemic risk," Mr. Schumer wrote in

an op-ed article on Friday in The Wall Street Journal. "But many other

financial institutions, including investment banks and hedge funds,

are regulated lightly, if at all, even though they act in many ways

like banks."

Mr. Paulson's proposal is likely to provoke bruising turf battles in

Congress among agencies and rival industry groups that benefit from

the current regulations.

Administration officials acknowledged on Friday that they did not

expect the proposal to become law this year, but said they hoped it

would help frame a policy debate that would extend well after the

elections in November.

In a nod to the debacle in mortgage lending, the administration

proposed a Mortgage Origination Commission to evaluate the

effectiveness of state governments in regulating mortgage brokers and

protecting consumers.

The bulk of the proposal, however, was developed before soaring

mortgage defaults set off a much broader credit crisis, and most of

the proposals are geared to streamlining regulation.

This plan would consolidate a large number of regulators into roughly

three big new agencies.

Bank supervision, now divided among five federal agencies, would be

led by a Prudential Financial Regulator, which could send examiners

into any bank or depository institution that is protected by either

federal deposit insurance or other federal backstops. It would

eliminate the distinction between "banks" and "thrift institutions,"

which are already indistinguishable to most consumers, and shut down

the Office of Thrift Supervision.

Any effort to merge the Commodity Futures Trading Commission with the

S.E.C. is likely to provoke battles.

Yet another proposal would, for the first time, create a national

regulator for insurance companies, an industry that state governments

now oversee.

Administration officials argue that a national system would eliminate

the inefficiencies of having 50 different state regulators, who have

jealously guarded their powers and are likely to fight any federal

encroachment.

Arthur Levitt, a former S.E.C. chairman who has long pushed for

stronger investor protection, said his first impression of the plan

was positive. Even though the S.E.C.'s powers might be reduced, Mr.

Levitt said, the plan would create a broader agency to regulate

business conduct in all financial services.

"It's a thoughtful document," he said. "I'm intrigued by the fact that

it puts an emphasis on investor protection, and that it establishes an

agency specifically for that purpose, which would operate across all

markets. I think that's a very constructive first step."

........................................................

This will be the last and final step for jews and Israel to

take over our Money and banking system...

love

hank

Americans are stupid.

On Mar 29, 7:41 am, Rightwinghank <rightwingh...@hotmail.com> wrote:

> March 29, 2008

> Treasury Dept. Plan Would Give Fed Wide New Power

> By EDMUND L. ANDREWS

> WASHINGTON -- The Treasury Department will propose on Monday that

> Congress give the Federal Reserve broad new authority to oversee

> financial market stability, in effect allowing it to send SWAT teams

> into any corner of the industry or any institution that might pose a

> risk to the overall system.

>

> The proposal is part of a sweeping blueprint to overhaul the nation's

> hodgepodge of financial regulatory agencies, which many experts say

> failed to recognize rampant excesses in mortgage lending until after

> they set off what is now the worst financial calamity in decades.

>

> Democratic lawmakers are all but certain to say the proposal does not

> go far enough in restricting the kinds of practices that caused the

> financial crisis. Many of the proposals, like those that would

> consolidate regulatory agencies, have nothing to do with the turmoil

> in financial markets. And some of the proposals could actually reduce

> regulation.

>

> According to a summary provided by the administration, the plan would

> consolidate an alphabet soup of banking and securities regulators into

> a powerful trio of overseers responsible for everything from banks and

> brokerage firms to hedge funds and private equity firms.

>

> While the plan could expose Wall Street investment banks and hedge

> funds to greater scrutiny, it carefully avoids a call for tighter

> regulation.

>

> The plan would not rein in practices that have been linked to the

> housing and mortgage crisis, like packaging risky subprime mortgages

> into securities carrying the highest ratings.

>

> The plan would give the Fed some authority over Wall Street firms, but

> only when an investment bank's practices threatened the entire

> financial system.

>

> And the plan does not recommend tighter rules over the vast and

> largely unregulated markets for risk sharing and hedging, like credit

> default swaps, which are supposed to insure lenders against loss but

> became a speculative instrument themselves and gave many institutions

> a false sense of security.

>

> Parts of the plan could reduce the power of the Securities and

> Exchange Commission, which is charged with maintaining orderly stock

> and bond markets and protecting investors. The plan would merge the

> S.E.C. with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, which regulates

> exchange-traded futures for oil, grains, currencies and the like.

>

> The blueprint also suggests several areas where the S.E.C. should take

> a lighter approach to its oversight. Among them are allowing stock

> exchanges greater leeway to regulate themselves and streamlining the

> approval of new products, even allowing automatic approval of

> securities products that are being traded in foreign markets.

>

> The proposal began last year as an effort by Henry M. Paulson Jr.,

> secretary of the Treasury, to make American financial markets more

> competitive against overseas markets by modernizing a creaky

> regulatory system.

>

> His goal was to streamline the different and sometimes clashing rules

> for commercial banks, savings and loans and nonbank mortgage lenders.

>

> "I am not suggesting that more regulation is the answer, or even that

> more effective regulation can prevent the periods of financial market

> stress that seem to occur every 5 to 10 years," Mr. Paulson will say

> in a speech on Monday, according to a draft. "I am suggesting that we

> should and can have a structure that is designed for the world we live

> in, one that is more flexible."

>

> Congress would have to approve almost every element of the proposal,

> and Democratic leaders are already drafting their own bills to impose

> tougher supervision over Wall Street investment banks, hedge funds and

> the fast-growing market in derivatives like credit default swaps.

>

> But Mr. Paulson's proposal for the Fed echoes ideas championed by

> Representative Barney Frank, the Massachusetts Democrat who is

> chairman of the House Financial Services Committee.

>

> Both see the Fed overseeing risk across the entire financial spectrum,

> but Mr. Frank is likely to favor a stronger Fed role and to subject

> investment banks to the same rules that commercial banks now must

> follow, especially for capital reserves.

>

> The Treasury plan would let Fed officials examine the practices and

> even the internal bookkeeping of brokerage firms, hedge funds,

> commodity-trading exchanges and any other institution that might pose

> a risk to the overall financial system.

>

> That would be a significant expansion of the central bank's regulatory

> mission.

>

> When Fed officials agreed this month to rescue Bear Stearns, once the

> nation's fifth-largest investment bank, they pointedly noted that the

> Fed never had the authority to monitor its financial condition or

> order it to bolster its protections against a collapse.

>

> In two unprecedented moves, the Fed engineered a marriage between

> JPMorgan Chase and Bear Stearns, lending $29 billion to JPMorgan to

> prevent a Bear bankruptcy and a chain of defaults that might have

> felled much of the financial system.

>

> For the first time since the 1930s, the Fed also agreed to let

> investment banks borrow hundreds of billions of dollars from its

> discount window, an emergency lending program reserved for commercial

> banks and other depository institutions.

>

> But Mr. Paulson's proposal would fall well short of the kind of

> regulation that Democrats have been proposing. Mr. Frank and other

> senior Democrats have argued that investment banks and other lightly

> regulated institutions now compete with commercial banks and should be

> subject to similar regulation, including examiners who regularly pore

> over their books and quietly demand changes in their practices.

>

> In a recent interview, Mr. Frank said he realized the need for tighter

> regulation of Wall Street firms after a meeting with Charles O. Prince

> III, then chairman of Citigroup.

>

> When Mr. Frank asked why Citigroup had kept billions of dollars in

> "structured investment vehicles" off the firm's balance sheet, he

> recalled, Mr. Prince responded that Citigroup, as a bank holding

> company, would have been at a disadvantage because investment firms

> can operate with higher debt and lower capital reserves.

>

> Senator Charles E. Schumer, Democrat of New York, has taken a similar

> stance.

>

> "Commercial banks continue to be supervised closely, and are subject

> to a host of rules meant to limit systemic risk," Mr. Schumer wrote in

> an op-ed article on Friday in The Wall Street Journal. "But many other

> financial institutions, including investment banks and hedge funds,

> are regulated lightly, if at all, even though they act in many ways

> like banks."

>

> Mr. Paulson's proposal is likely to provoke bruising turf battles in

> Congress among agencies and rival industry groups that benefit from

> the current regulations.

>

> Administration officials acknowledged on Friday that they did not

> expect the proposal to become law this year, but said they hoped it

> would help frame a policy debate that would extend well after the

> elections in November.

>

> In a nod to the debacle in mortgage lending, the administration

> proposed a Mortgage Origination Commission to evaluate the

> effectiveness of state governments in regulating mortgage brokers and

> protecting consumers.

>

> The bulk of the proposal, however, was developed before soaring

> mortgage defaults set off a much broader credit crisis, and most of

> the proposals are geared to streamlining regulation.

>

> This plan would consolidate a large number of regulators into roughly

> three big new agencies.

>

> Bank supervision, now divided among five federal agencies, would be

> led by a Prudential Financial Regulator, which could send examiners

> into any bank or depository institution that is protected by either

> federal deposit insurance or other federal backstops. It would

> eliminate the distinction between "banks" and "thrift institutions,"

> which are already indistinguishable to most consumers, and shut down

> the Office of Thrift Supervision.

>

> Any effort to merge the Commodity Futures Trading Commission with the

> S.E.C. is likely to provoke battles.

>

> Yet another proposal would, for the first time, create a national

> regulator for insurance companies, an industry that state governments

> now oversee.

>

> Administration officials argue that a national system would eliminate

> the inefficiencies of having 50 different state regulators, who have

> jealously guarded their powers and are likely to fight any federal

> encroachment.

>

> Arthur Levitt, a former S.E.C. chairman who has long pushed for

> stronger investor protection, said his first impression of the plan

> was positive. Even though the S.E.C.'s powers might be reduced, Mr.

> Levitt said, the plan would create a broader agency to regulate

> business conduct in all financial services.

>

> "It's a thoughtful document," he said. "I'm intrigued by the fact that

> it puts an emphasis on investor protection, and that it establishes an

> agency specifically for that purpose, which would operate across all

> markets. I think that's a very constructive first step."

> .......................................................

>

> This will be the last and final step for jews and Israel to

>

> take over our Money and banking system...

>

> love

> hank

> Americans are stupid.

Yep, skanky its terrible, better buy that ticket to Argentina or

Uruguay (lot of Nazis still down there) NOW, they'll be in short

supply after Nov.

Rightwinghank wrote:

> March 29, 2008

> Treasury Dept. Plan Would Give Fed Wide New Power

> By EDMUND L. ANDREWS

> WASHINGTON -- The Treasury Department will propose on Monday that

> Congress give the Federal Reserve broad new authority to oversee

> financial market stability, in effect allowing it to send SWAT teams

> into any corner of the industry or any institution that might pose a

> risk to the overall system.

>

> The proposal is part of a sweeping blueprint to overhaul the nation's

> hodgepodge of financial regulatory agencies, which many experts say

> failed to recognize rampant excesses in mortgage lending until after

> they set off what is now the worst financial calamity in decades.

>

Yeah, that works. Give all the power to regulate the morons who got us

into this mess to the Fed, who are accountable to no one. I don't think so.

The need for regulation is apparent. Deregulation didn't work. In fact

the Sec. of the Treasury says the same thing.

Besides, the Fed wasn't created to protect the rich - though that's what

they've been doing for decades.

--

Impeach Bush

http://zzpat.tripod.com/cvb/

Impeach Search Engine:

http://www.google.com/coop/cse?cx=012146513885108216046:rzesyut3kmm