Though President Obama and the Democrats promise a fierce financial watchdog, what they’re delivering looks like a pretty tame pussycat.
There’s a disconnect between the Democrats’ tough rhetoric about the need for financial reform and the legislation that’s actually making its way through Congress.
It would be hard to find two congressmen more politically opposite than Brad Sherman and Jeb Hensarling.
Sherman is solid Democrat from the San Fernando Valley in southern California. Hensarling is a red-meat Texas conservative protege of former senator Phil Gramm.
Sherman and Hensarling may not agree about anything else.
But the two men have been outspoken in one shared view: that the bailout known as the Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP has lacked accountability or transparency from day one.
Imagine if you could report the value of your work on your tax return, rather than your actual income. At the end of the year, you’d issue yourself a W2 or a 1099 based on a comparison of how other people who did the same kind of work valued their efforts. The lower the worth you put on your work, the lower your taxes. Let’s just say the IRS wouldn’t be too happy with a system that encouraged low-balling.
Wall Street bankers were able to arrange an equally self-serving compensation system for themselves - and they got away with it.
In a week, the nation will celebrate the one-year anniversary of Wall Street’s collapse.
For most, it won’t be a festive occasion. A whopping 16% of Americans able to work are unemployed or are working fewer hours than they want. Spending is way down because people are scared and many are unable to borrow – lines of credit have been slashed and credit card interest rates are skyrocketing. Since household spending amounts to at least 30% of the nation’s economic activity, this has had a devastating ripple effect on the economy.