Before some dolt tries to blame Republicans for the banking meltdown, look closely at the sponsors and co-sponsors of this bill introduced in 2005 and which NEVER made it to a vote because ht was voted down ACROSS PARTY LINES. And who is the majority in Congress?
S. 190 [109th]: Federal Housing Enterprise Regulatory Reform Act of 2005
A bill to address the regulation of secondary mortgage market enterprises, and for other purposes.
http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=s109-190&tab=summary
Sponsor: Sen. Charles Hagel [R-NE]
Cosponsors [as of 2007-01-08]
Sen. Elizabeth Dole [R-NC]
Sen. John McCain [R-AZ]
Sen. John Sununu [R-NH]
Status: Introduced Jan 26, 2005
Scheduled for Debate -
Voted on in Senate -
Voted on in House -
Signed by President -
This bill never became law. This bill was proposed in a previous session of Congress. Sessions of Congress last two years, and at the end of each session all proposed bills and resolutions that haven't passed are cleared from the books.
Last Action: Jul 28, 2005: Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs. Ordered to be reported with an amendment in the nature of a substitute favorably.
SUMMARY OF THE BILL
1/26/2005--Introduced.
Federal Housing Enterprise Regulatory Reform Act of 2005 - Amends the Federal Housing Enterprises Financial Safety and Soundness Act of 1992 to establish: (1) in lieu of the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight of the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), an independent Federal Housing Enterprise Regulatory Agency which shall have authority over the Federal Home Loan Bank Finance Corporation, the Federal Home Loan Banks, the Federal National Mortgage Association (Fannie Mae), and the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation (Freddie Mac); and (2) the Federal Housing Enterprise Board.
Sets forth operating, administrative, and regulatory provisions of the Agency, including provisions respecting: (1) assessment authority; (2) authority to limit nonmission-related assets; (3) minimum and critical capital levels; (4) risk-based capital test; (5) capital classifications and undercapitalized enterprises; (6) enforcement actions and penalties; (7) golden parachutes; and (8) reporting.
Amends the Federal Home Loan Bank Act to establish the Federal Home Loan Bank Finance Corporation. Transfers the functions of the Office of Finance of the Federal Home Loan Banks to such Corporation.
Excludes the Federal Home Loan Banks from certain securities reporting requirements.
Abolishes the Federal Housing Finance Board.
"And who is the majority in Congress?"
In 2005, both houses of Congress were controlled by Republicans. Either way, this bill would not have affected the collapse of the CDO market.
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"Show me a man who lives alone and has a perpetually dirty kitchen, and
five times out of nine I'll show you an exceptional man." -Charles
Bukowski
The 110th United States Congress, with its 232-202 Democratic majority in the House and the 49-49-2 split in the Senate (2 independents who tend to vote with the Dems) did not start meeting until January 3, 2007.
Also, perhaps you could - just for one minute - set aside your rah-rah partisanship and recognize that BOTH political parties got us into this ugly, f...ked-up mess. Of course, the world is simpler and easier to understand when you have a convenient enemy to blame, like "LIBERALS" and "DEMOCRATS" and "SOCIALISTS," right?
BTW - how's that goal of yours to receive oral sex from left-wingers working out, buddy? Maybe a few kinky Democrats have some favorite naughty restrooms you could visit to help you out in your quest, like Larry Craig did. I'm just sayin'....
http://historymike.blogspot.com/
...old building waiting for the construction workers to "blow" it)
http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=s109-190. I don't know why it wasn't allowed out of the committee (where it passed) onto the floor. I do read things that the Democrats opposed it on party lines. If this economic "meltdown" is the result of their political warfare then they deserve to be thrown out of office. I just find it hard to believe that there isn't more to this than that.
The Clinton administration - prompted by efforts of House and Senate Republicans with the complicity of most Democratic members of Congress - relaxed banking regulations under the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, which repealed portions of the 1933 Glass-Steagall Act. All of these politicians, however, acted in the interests of the financial services industry with this massive change in policy. The GOP likes to say that the Democratic insistence on strengthening the Community Reinvestment Act - an addendum to the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act - was the "cause" of the mortgage crisis, but G-L-B provided the biggest boost to Wall Street banks.
We could blame Republicans, since it was a Republican administration that was supposed to be the financial watchdogs the last 8-1/2 years. We could also blame Democrats for any role as the minority party in killing the aforementioned Federal Housing Enterprise Regulatory Reform Act, though that bill would have only addressed perceived problems with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. If we look hard enough, we will find all sorts of pieces of a much larger puzzle, and any one of those pieces might have a "D" or an "R" after it.
Or we can recognize that the incestuous relationship between Wall Street and Washington politicans allowed for an unregulated free-for-all that stands to reward imprudent banking practices and that will create the world's single largest corporate welfare project in American (and probably world) history.
http://historymike.blogspot.com/
One of the first steps to the mess we are in now, from the Carter administration.
Federal law, enacted in 1980, deregulating deposit interest rates and expanding access to the Federal Reserve Discount Window in the first major reform of the U.S. Banking system since the 1930s. The act has two main sections: Title 1, the Monetary Control Act, which extends Reserve Requirements to all U.S. Banking institutions and also deals with the banking services furnished by the Federal Reserve System; and Title 2, the Depository Institutions Deregulation Act of 1980, phasing out Federal Reserve Regulation Q deposit interest rate ceilings.
http://www.answers.com/topic/depository-institutions-deregulation-and-mo...
And the Savings and loan crisis from the Reagan administration;
The savings and loan crisis of the 1980s and 1990s (commonly referred to as the S&L crisis) was the failure of 747 savings and loan associations (S&Ls) in the United States. The ultimate cost of the crisis is estimated to have totaled around USD$160.1 billion, about $124.6 billion of which was directly paid for by the U.S. government—that is, the U.S. taxpayer, either directly or through charges on their savings and loan accounts[1]—which contributed to the large budget deficits of the early 1990s.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Savings_and_Loan_crisis
Have we learned anything, yet?
...was a "young" state, and before banking regulations the Ohio banks colluded by combining their reserves (in gold), and moving this proof of their liquidity from bank to bank a few hours ahead of the bank examiner. Seems like things haven't changed that much in the last 175 or so years.
In the wildest days of unregulated banking, individual banks could circulate their own notes and bonds, which acted as de facto currency in times of a shortage of specie. A bank could set up shop with only the most meager assets, print out massive quantities of impressive-looking but utterly worthlesspieces of paper, and fleeece everyone for hundreds of miles before closing up shop.
Interesting parallels with the age of digital banking, when one's net worth is nothing more than the movement and storage of sub-microscopic electrons on a series of central processing units.
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