Remember how we were all told that by installing new regulation oversight on the banks would fix what is wrong with the economy?
Remember how the same guys who broke the financial economy and stole trillions stood before the world and declared that they now know how to fix it?
Well … one thing is for sure … The Fix Is In!
Right out of the gate on financial reform that Senator Dodd just had to get done before he retired we find this buried in 2000+ pages.
Under a little-noticed provision of the recently passed financial-reform legislation, the Securities and Exchange Commission no longer has to comply with virtually all requests for information releases from the public, including those filed under the Freedom of Information Act.
Obama specifically said it would “increase transparency in financial dealings.”
There is always one more question that should be asked when these kind of blanket statements are made. Transparent for who? Because it sure isn’t the public .. we are here for the bilking.
The law, signed last week by President Obama, exempts the SEC from disclosing records or information derived from “surveillance, risk assessments, or other regulatory and oversight activities.” Given that the SEC is a regulatory body, the provision covers almost every action by the agency, lawyers say. Congress and federal agencies can request information, but the public cannot.
The US Constitution was written on four pages. The Bill of Rights, one page. Chris Dodd’s Financial Regulation? 2000+ pages.
They have really covered their own tracks with this one. The SEC had failed to detect the impending catastrophe or prosecute any of the responsible parties for this disaster and now, thanks to FinReg, we will never get to.
Steven Mintz, founding partner of law firm Mintz & Gold LLC in New York, lamented what he described as “the backroom deal that was cut between Congress and the SEC to keep the SEC’s failures secret. The only losers here are the American public.”
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