As the Senate continues its debate on a financial reform bill, the Institute for America's Future Report, "Big Bank Takeover," looks at who's really behind the scenes attempting to control the debate. more »
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Two-hundred and forty former legislators, bank committee staffers, and Treasury officials deployed to lobby. $600 million spent in lobbying, trade association activity and political contributions since March 2008. And that is just from the six biggest banks. The entire financial industry is spending an estimated $1.4 million a day, hiring 70 former members of Congress to make their case.
The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) is the top bank regulatory agency in the United States. It oversees the largest banks in the country, and completely failed to regulate them effectively in the years leading up to the Great Financial Crash of 2008. more »
Something so simple, so easy: end tens of billions of dollars in bank subsidies to the private lending industry and return much of the savings back into the hand of students, with the Department of Education providing loans to students directly. A no-brainer right? Well reform may be a no-go, if six Senate Democrats have their way.more »
baselinescenario.com — Listening to U.S. officials, talking to legal experts, and waiting for an intense Senate debate on financial reform to begin, you can easily form the impression that “too big to fail” adequately describes our most serious future systemic banking problems. It does not. Here are some mistakes to avoid.
Even before a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision blew the lid off corporate campaign spending, it was clear that the big banks would be key players in the 2010 election cycle. more »
Banks still aren't lending where its needed, and it's getting worse, not better, for small businesses - the nation's jobs engine. Why did we bail out the big banks, again? Perhaps our government should just loan directly to the job creators instead of the job killers. more »
A chart buried in the Congressional Oversight Panel report released Tuesday explains one of the reasons why a compromise on a financial regulatory reform bill struck by the White House, the House Democratic leadership and a group of conservative Democrats is so wrong-headed and potentially dangerous. more »
Representative John Kline (R-MN) and Senator Mike Enzi (R-WY) introduced legislation this week that keeps our broken student loan system in status quo, with corrupt private lenders and federal bank subsidies worth billions. more »
Just when you thought that the dust had settled from the scandals of Wall Street (at least temporarily), details come out of another Ponzi scheme by the titans of banking, this time with student loans. more »
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