A Foray Into (Partisan) Political Commentary

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/27/business/27regulate.html?partner=rss&emc=rss&src=igw



It seems the Senate Republicans are trying to kill the economic reform bill. I wish they would just have the decency to be honest; just come out and say it, guys. You don't want tighter government regulation of the financial industry because it would cut into your own profit margins. Just get it out in the open. It'll feel better. It's not like you really care what the common folk think anyway, so you might as well get it over with.


The casual reader might think I'm being overly dramatic and cynical, and you might be right. 


'“We shouldn’t put in place a regulatory regime that overly reacts and, as a result, significantly dampens our capacity to have the most vibrant capital and credit markets in the world,” he [Senator Judd Gregg, Republican of New Hampshire] said.'


This sort of 'regime' is what prevented media consolidation (which is strangling the journalism industry, and, selfishly, my chances of using my degree) until the late 1990s, when the Telecommunications Act began deregulation of media ownership (among other things, but I'm griping about regulation, so I'm focusing on the parts of the Act that affect my argument. See? Transparency!) 


It seems to me that what proponents of deregulation, like the Senate Republicans here, forget is that ancient axiom "Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely." The financial meltdown of 2008 showed the populous that the people who control our money don't really care about anything besides the bits of our money that end up in their pocketbooks (actually, there were warnings for years, but everyone treated them like exceptions rather than the rule. See further: Enron; Halliburton; etc.). 


It seems obvious that we can't trust the people who actually control these funds to manipulate them responsibly. And republicans want to remove more oversight? Um. Who's side are they on again? Oh right. Their own side. Huh.


From the NYTimes article: "The bill would also establish a consumer protection agency intended to end predatory lending practices and require that consumers receive detailed information on mortgages, credit cards and other financing. ... They [Republicans, presumably] said the bill would give too much power to the new consumer protection bureau."


I'm not sure if I'm nitpicking the Times' reporter's writing here, or just finding a flaw in the argument, but wouldn't ending predatory lending be a good thing? I did cut out a few paragraphs between the above statements, but they don't contain anything that seems overly draconian. "...provide new oversight of hedge funds and impose tough rules on the trading of derivatives" oversight is good, right? "restructure the federal system of bank regulation, moving many small banks out from under the Federal Reserve" Doesn't that remove government control over the small banks? 


Anyway, it just seems to me that republicans are trying to appeal to the Libertarian population, who tend to reject government control over their lives. The problem is that Libertarians (according to my limited knowledge of them) tend to focus on government intervention at the personal level, having less to say about government control over institutions. Maybe I just don't have a good grasp on Libertarian philosophy, but it seems like if you were a Libertarian, and you weren't all that bright, you might fall for this Republican scheme (better tone it back, there, bucko. You're sounding a little bit vitriolic). 


I could go on for hours about this article and the problems I see in it and it's subject matter, but I think I'll leave the rest of it to the professionals.