Bill Shields All But Largest Banks From Regulation
WASHINGTON — In a sharp reversal from their previous unwritten rule of bending over smaller community banks at every turn in favor of backing irresponsible risk taking and massive bonus schemes by the larger banks, the House Financial Committee bowed to pressure from a group of torch and pitchfork waiving citizens outside the Capitol Building yesterday and approved an exemption for 98% of the nation’s banks from oversight by a new agency created to keep credit card holders, home loaners, and other debt slaves from rioting.
The exemption would prevent the new consumer financial protection agency from conducting annual examinations of the lending practices at more than 8,000 of the nation’s 8,200 banks, leaving only the largest banks in a position where they could be reviewed. In related news, approximately 200 of the nations 8200 banks began readying plans to spin out their credit and loan divisions in order to continue to shirk the dreaded specter of oversight and ethical dealing.
Earlier in the day, the committee finished work on a separate politically motivated legislation for regulating the derivatives market. Not to be outdone, lobbiest ensured that the derivatives laws contained carve-outs for the priviledged few and their client list, so as not to upset the delicate balance of total world domination by a few annoited banking houses.
In another shocking development, the exemption for the banks was endorsed by the chairman, Representative Barney Frank of Massachusetts, who receives the majority of his campaign contributions from those receiving the carve out in the new derivatives law.
“After that unprecedented ‘give away’ to the biggest banking houses, we really need to level the playing field by letting the community banks and credit unions run wild with leverage and ill advised bets without the bothersome burden of regulation,” representative Miller said. “They’ve been complaining for years that their smaller size and lower leverage makes it difficult for them to afford the best and the brightest of the crooks coming out of the ivy league schools these days. For them, the burden of regulation is very real because they don’t have the required expertise to get around the government meddling into irrelevancies like ‘liquidity’, ‘capital requirements’, marking assets to ‘market’ and ’sarbanes oxley’. Having to actually prove solvency can make it impossible to compete with the large money center banks.”
Under the Miller-Moore amendment, the new agency would have the authority to write rules for all banks and other lenders, including lenders that have never faced significant regulation. Fortunately, the banks with assets of less than $10 billion and credit unions smaller than $1.5 billion would not face regular exams by the agency.
“My consituencies are telling me it’s gonna be impossible to pass another trillion to the large banks. Fortunately, displaced bankers from the larger banks can simply move to the smaller community banks and credit unions to continue the graft. Of course, it’ll be harder to steal as much with less capital, but when there are absolutely no leverage limitations, and no regulatory oversight, they can just lever these small banks up with several trillion in bets,” said Frank. “Then when the bets go bad, we can bail them out too under the guise of ‘market fairness’ and ‘competition’. It’s pretty brilliant really.”
The amendment was warmly greeted by lobbyists for the smaller banks,
“The Miller-Moore amendment addresses some of our key concerns,” said Camden R. Fine, president of the Independent Community Bankers of America, which represents about 5,000 financial institutions.
Party on.
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