Conway would have voted for Dodd-Frank Financial Regulation bill....

[BamaFanNKy]

• On FinReg: I didn’t realize that Conway had spent a year on the Senate Banking Committee staff. He seemed to have a good understanding of the bill. He would have voted for Dodd-Frank, though he was concerned by a number of provisions. He didn’t want the consumer protection agency to pre-empt state laws (like his own: Kentucky has a consumer protection act, and Conway as AG was instrumental in negotiating the Countrywide mortgage fraud settlement). “I’m not nuts about the Scott Brown compromise,” Conway said. “Commercial banks should be involved in sounder practices, and the investment banks should take on the riskier ones… right now there is no disincentive to risky practices.” He said he probably would have supported the Brown-Kaufman amendment to reduce bank size, and that “some of the biggest banks need to be broken up… the top six are at 70% of GDP. The Justice Department and the anti-trust division needs to do its job. We haven’t had a real fight on a corporate merger in years. These banks got bigger after the crisis, and it’s got to stop. That’s not anti-business, that’s pro-competition. Wall Street is supposed to be this bastion of capitalism,” though he sees it more like a monopoly with private profits and socialized risk.

This puts Conway in sharp contrast to other Senate candidates like former banker Alexi Giannoulias, whose Wall Street reform position papers says nothing on bank size. It’s a populist position to take that would fundamentally restructure the financial sector.

http://news.firedoglake.com/2010/07/...the-big-banks/

[sailingaway]

So he supports the Federal Reserve Empowerment Act.

Color me unsurprised.

[Kludge]

Seems like a reasonable position. Banks have been consolidating for decades putting consumers at risk while they engage in increasingly riskier activities unrelated to their intended function as a financial intermediary.

Of course, now that investment firms like Edward Jones offer credit cards & checking services.......... Eh.

[sailingaway]

Seems like a reasonable position. Banks have been consolidating for decades putting consumers at risk while they engage in increasingly riskier activities unrelated to their intended function as a financial intermediary.

Of course, now that investment firms like Edward Jones offer credit cards & checking services.......... Eh.

Read the bill. The position may sound fine but wait until you see the act he is supporting.

[Kludge]

Read the bill. The position may sound fine but wait until you see the act he is supporting.

Eh - I watched CSPAN almost the whole time they were going over it. Mostly moves to further nationalize the banks to prevent problems like moving away from traditional banking and into risky trading, esp. with financial derivatives. Also increases accountability and requires banks to report more and report more precisely. Outside of that, there were lots of consumer-protection-oriented amendments such as one to provide free credit reports to people after making major purchases. However, I haven´t read libertarian analysis of the bill.

[sailingaway]

Eh - I watched CSPAN almost the whole time they were going over it. Mostly moves to further nationalize the banks to prevent problems like moving away from traditional banking and into risky trading, esp. with financial derivatives. Also increases accountability and requires banks to report more and report more precisely. Outside of that, there were lots of consumer-protection-oriented amendments such as one to provide free credit reports to people after making major purchases. However, I haven´t read libertarian analysis of the bill.

It gives the Federal Reserve huge new powers, and the 'nationalization' itself is a big problem with me, by what right do they do that, what Constitutional power?