Senators get briefing on Dodd-Frank progress
Jeremy Hobson: Well in Washington today bank regulators will be on Capitol Hill to update Senators on Wall Street reform. It’s been almost two years since Congress passed the Dodd-Frank financial reform law to fix the flaws that led to the 2008 economic meltdown. Since then, regulators — with a lot of input from lobbyists — have been trying to figure out how the law should be implemented.
Marketplace’s John Dimsdale gives us a look now at their progress.
John Dimsdale: Over 2,300 pages long, Dodd-Frank imposed new financial requirements on banks, brought their complex trades out into the open and was designed to protect consumers.
Michael Greenberger is a former director of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. He says there’s still a long way to go.
Michael Greenberger: For the most part, we’re still operating under the regulatory regime that was in place when we experienced the meltdown in September 2008.
Of Dodd-Frank’s 400 new rules, more than half have missed their deadlines.
Michael Barr says that’s because Congress is underfunding the regulators. Barr is a former assistant secretary of the Treasury who helped write Dodd-Frank.
Michael Barr: The real risk right now is this kind of collective amnesia you see in some quarters saying we should roll back the clock and bring back the financial system we had that really crushed the American economy.
Barr says last month’s revelations that JPMorgan lost billions in risky trades have reminded people why Dodd-Frank was necessary in the first place.
In Washington, I’m John Dimsdale for Marketplace.
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