This article taken from the Telegraph here in the UK:-
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comme…
An exract below.
“Because of this law, the American people will never again be asked to foot the bill for Wall Street’s mistakes,” Obama boomed at the schmaltzy signing ceremony, amid bursts of applause.
“These reforms will put a stop to a lot of the bad loans that fuelled this debt-based bubble,” the President gushed to America and the rest of the world. “This bill also empowers consumerse_SLpsdelivering the strongest consumer financial protections in history.”
It would be reassuring if we could agree with Obama, concluding that Dodd-Frank will help to prevent the next systemic crisis and associated bail-out of “too-big-to-fail” banks. Reassuring, but wrong.
For despite some marginal regulatory improvements, this is no Rooseveltian legislative milestone. Amid the hype and back-slapping of last week’s launch, the sad reality is that Dodd-Frank fails to address the fundamental problems that resulted in the sub-prime fiasco and the related damage to not just America, but the entire global economy.
The inherent feebleness of this door-stopping bundle of statute and its lack of desperately needed substance, was brilliantly captured by Laurence Kotlikoff, a highly-respected professor of economics at Boston University. “This law is like being invited to dinner and served pictures of food,” Kotlikoff remarked
Americans are asking about BP lobbying and the freeing of Al Megrahi. IÂ wouldn’t be supprised if they did lobby the UK Govt.. After all that’s what big companies do. They do it here and in the rest of the world especially in the USA. There are supposed to be checks and balances in democracies for such lobbying to be lawful and transparent and elected officials to be held accountable for their decisions. If left unchecked some of these mega corporations will eat away the fabric of society like a cancer. US presidents and senators need enormous campaign contributions to run an election campaign. The big corporations are only too willing to make financial donations but they usually want to call in favours when the time comes. This seems to be at the heart of the financial crisis (and possibly contributing to the Gulf oil spill)
America is a great country and the world is generally a better place for it but is it now a model the rest of the world should be following and can we still call it the land of the free?
Mike
