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Senate passes massive Wall Street regulation bill

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This is a very sad day. Without the Vitter Amendment included, its a disaster waiting to happen. That little Amendment, which the Dems refused to allow, would have made it so the only thing affected by this were financial institutions. What this bill means, is that the government can now nationalize anything it thinks could impact the economy. Meaning some mid level drone could simply decide he doesn't like your face, and decide your company potentially could impact the economy.

Yes thats extreme, and yes its doubtful it would happen, however the point is, that under this legislation, it could happen. The Vitter Amendment which Dems absolutely refused to consider would have restricted this power to institutions that are predominantly financial institutions. IE actual banks. Instead, anything that has anything to do with finance, IE almost anything, can potentially be classified in this way. Its a very, very sad day for the US today, as we move one step closer to totalitarianism, and state control.

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15 years too late

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Vitter, the guy from LA state who used prostitutes while preaching about god and family. That guy is still around after being exposed and protecting the interests of the banks that ruined the country? Amazing.

No doubt this is 15 years too late and would have never happened if the republicans were still in charge. They would just give more tax money to the failed banks and criminal wall street firms like bush did in 2008. Billions wasted. Finally the reality of the phony free market lies of the republican party has been buried and regulation to protect US taxpayers and to protect banks from themselves will soon be in place. It took the great depression to set things up correctly for the country to prosper and the banks be controlled but the republicans slowly took that control away for bigger and bigger donations until the music stopped under bush. Trillions were lost. No terrorists could do that, only the republicans could do that much damage.

I am sure the bill has it flaws but this is a great day for American and for Americans, and a bad day for the criminals on Wall Street (aka the Republicans).

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Good on the Senate for passing this LONG overdue bill. Of course a number of Republicans wanted to protect the institutions that helped lead to the financial crises, and so were against it, but even a few of them broke ranks to show their support. Now THAT's saying something big!

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Good on the Senate for passing this LONG overdue bill. Of course a number of Republicans wanted to protect the institutions that helped lead to the financial crises, and so were against it, but even a few of them broke ranks to show their support. Now THAT's saying something big!

Get a clue. Seriously! Large financial institutions like Bank of America and many others were strongly in favor of this, and let their Democrat allies know. Why do you think they had so little trouble getting it passed. What very few seem to realize is just who is hurt by this bill. Small banks, and anything that could in some way be classified as being a predominantly 'financial institution'. This hurts them, and helps the bigger companies. Aren't you excited knowing you just squeezed the smaller banks market share? These banks are so in bed with Obama they practically wrote this bill themselves. All it does is codify the regulations they are already under, and impose them on everyone else.

You'll note the fuzzy language that was deliberately used, which can mean just about anything. Wal-mart is a predominantly financial institution. So is just about every other small business in America, barring non profits. Yet the Dems shot down efforts to change this language to be more precise and only apply to ACTUAL financial institutions.

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Perhaps if they get on with the job of auditing, then shutting down, the Federal Reserve and putting its operators on trial for fraud and treason, some real positive change may happen. Until then it's just shuffling the deckchairs on the Titanic, since so many of the politicians are beholden to Big Finance and Big Business.

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Republicans are playing a very dangerous game here siding with the banks, just so they can keep up with their strategy of opposing everything the Democrats come up with. Except for the four who voted yes, they have set themselves up as pretty easy targets for attack ads in the fall.

They also have to hope that they can keep getting people to believe that all the USA's problems are caused by illegal aliens, socialism, radical leftists, and big gov'mint, and all the other stuff Republicans and tea-partiers jabber on about. Actually, 100% of what is wrong with America is caused by banks, finance, and the fraudulent, anti-capitalist, neo-liberal Ponzi economic system, same as everywhere else in the world. When enough people figure that out, any politician who sides with the banks will be toast.

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Republicans are playing a very dangerous game here siding with the banks, just so they can keep up with their strategy of opposing everything the Democrats come up with. Except for the four who voted yes, they have set themselves up as pretty easy targets for attack ads in the fall.

Lets set the record straight here. Democrats are siding with large banks and big corporations. They were the ones supporting this. Republicans were siding with smaller banks and Main Street, which opposed this, as its going to impose regulations already on big banks, on them as well. Dems could have left that part out of the bill, but they deliberately chose not to at the behest of their Big Bank friends. Theres a reason why these Wall Street firms give so much money to Democrats. Dems just gave em a huge gift at the expense of everyone else.

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Melenir, scare tactics and advocation of discredited individuals who are clearly in the pocket of big companies just won't work. The banks and many other institutions needed to be reigned in. The sad thing is that we don't have salary caps and strong restrictions on bonus payments as a part of this. The culture of greed is still very much alive in the financial sector and that will continue to drive bone headed practices, the creation of doomed products and the accumulation of obscene wealth by the few while the many suffer the consequences.

It is too bad we could not have sent the culprits of this mess to an American equivalent of labor camps to work off the money they lost.

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big banks have declared significant if not record profits

That's a GOOD thing. Do you prefer banks to declare losses?

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Prodded by national anger at Wall Street,

Wrong, most people are against this bill. Only Dem politicos and media leftists are for it.

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Looks like 4 republicans liked the bill. Looks bipartisan to me. < :-)

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Looks like 4 republicans liked the bill. Looks bipartisan to me. < :-)

THAT'S bipartisan? LOL!! You and the Dems really fit good together, all your heads are in the sand. Get ready for the November wake-up call!

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I'm looking forward to them. < :-)

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adaydream -

good, because your dear Sen Reid is out. Many more to come. :-)

Do you EVER disagree with Democrats? You really are a strict party-line shill.

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It's like locking the barn door after the horse has ran away.. Too little, too late.

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Melenir, scare tactics and advocation of discredited individuals who are clearly in the pocket of big companies just won't work. The banks and many other institutions needed to be reigned in. The sad thing is that we don't have salary caps and strong restrictions on bonus payments as a part of this. The culture of greed is still very much alive in the financial sector and that will continue to drive bone headed practices, the creation of doomed products and the accumulation of obscene wealth by the few while the many suffer the consequences.

Ah yes, the standard class warfare crap. When backed into a corner by reality, they trot this old BS out. We should all hate those who are more successful then us, who make more then us, greed is bad, unless its us who are greedy for the money of others... Yeah. Sorry that works for the dishonest, the honest prefer to actually work for a living and earn their own way. If things are fair, with people not being promoted over you unfairly, then most people still believe in the promise of America, despite everything the progressives can do to make us buy into the class warfare crap.

Again, this is sponsored by, and supported by the Big Banks, and Big Labor. Look it up if you don't believe me. Its not that hard to find. Now, ask yourself why that is. What is it they get out of it. Thanks for playing.

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Molenir,

I've been muddling through what I like to call the Stop Being Such Greedy A-Holes Bill, trying to eke out the reasons you think this is some sort of plot to open the door for some new totalitarian overlord, and out of some 30 pages of definitions, I can't find one paragraph, sentence, or phrase that could be construed as opening up and an all business enterprises in the U.S. to government takeover. It goes to great lengths to spell out what comprises "over the counter swap markets" and "security-based swap markets," but nothing in the definitions describes any sort of business venture, activity, or investment practice that could be undertaken by the vast majority of U.S. businesses. It reigns in financial institutions -- as in “financial institutions. Period.” As opposed to “financial institutions. {wink! wink}” that you seem to think it means.

Companies like Wal-Mart, even with its financing options, and credit cards handed out like candy to unqualified consumers, probably aren't going to be touched by this bill. At least not the retailing aspect of Wal-Mart. However, if the money wizards at Wal-Mart decide to get into risky, speculative trading of virtual capital, then yeah, they fall under the purview of this bill. And rightly so, particularly if their gambles to put a few extra million dollars into the pockets of the top tier of the company with money that they shouldn’t be investing in the first place lead to the dissolution of a company that employs 2.1 million people and generates $408 billion per year.

Joe “Small Business Owner” Smith isn’t going to be packaging debt and trading it on the securities market anytime soon, so he can rest easy, I think.

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Molenir,

Okay, so let's assume you're right and Big Banks were indeed behind this push to codify into federal law sweeping restrictions and regulations on lending, borrowing, and investing practices. So what? I'm waiting for you to explain how an industry that goes out of its way to tie one hand behind its own back is doing anything sinister.

"Now, ask yourself why that is. What is it they get out of it."

So you've apparently got the answer to this little mystery, but have chosen to play coy, perhaps to allow time for nervous anticipation to crest before you declare, "The Colonel did it with the candle stick in the Library."

C'mon, out with it, man. Help save the Republic. Tell us all why Big Banks really support this bill and what do they really get out of it.

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Something the neo-communists can't answer - why is profit bad?

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Something the neo-communists can't answer - why is profit bad?

I'm too busy laughing, so I'll just cut and paste this guy to explain.

"Gentlemen, I have had men watching you for a long time and I am convinced that you have used the funds of the bank to speculate in the breadstuffs of the country. When you won, you divided the profits amongst you, and when you lost, you charged it to the bank. You tell me that if I take the deposits from the bank and annul its charter, I shall ruin ten thousand families. That may be true, gentlemen, but that is your sin! Should I let you go on, you will ruin fifty thousand families, and that would be my sin! You are a den of vipers and thieves." Andrew Jackson, 7th president of the United States.

For "the bank" just change it to the "federal reserve", and not much has changed. The game is the same.

Of course, Jackson's solution was followed by a depression. He, he, that might not be different this time either.

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This'll fix everything, lol.

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GJ - I love it when neo-comms try to quote who they think are conservatives.

Please answer - why are profits bad?

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manfromamerica,

The answer to what you think is a clever question is quite simple: Profit, in and of itself, is not bad.

How that profit is attainted is an entirely different story.

Profit solely for the sake of profit leads to precisely what happened when Wall Street decided to trade debt as a valuable commodity. The bottom fell out, people lost their homes, jobs, pensions, and unemployment still hovers at around 10%.

So you tell us, is this the good kind of profit?

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LFRA - There was nothing wrong with what was done.

Profit is good, period.

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LFRA - for the unemployment issue, blame Barney Frank, Fannie and Freddie, the Obama deficits, "bailouts" and government takeovers, the health care socialism fiasco, and now the Senate Bill that caused a 6% drop in the Dow today.

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I've been muddling through what I like to call the Stop Being Such Greedy A-Holes Bill, trying to eke out the reasons you think this is some sort of plot to open the door for some new totalitarian overlord, and out of some 30 pages of definitions, I can't find one paragraph, sentence, or phrase that could be construed as opening up and an all business enterprises in the U.S. to government takeover.

http://biggovernment.com/jberlau/2010/05/19/vitters-not-everythings-a-bank-amendment-drives-progressives-nuts/

This article is one that most closely mirrors my own thinking on the matter. He gets some stuff wrong, and as I mentioned before, I don't actually believe that the government WILL come in and simply take over small businesses. Merely that with this law, it could. The Vitter amendment would have changed that, but Dems would not allow it. Look up the Vitter Amendment and see what it would have changed. Not hard to find the language in question. Again note, its not so much about what the government will do, its what it could do under this bill, and its fuzzy language. Language that was deliberately chosen to leave the barn door gaping wide open.

As for the bill itself, try page 33 and 34, where it discusses 'substantial' and 'significantly'

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I thought I should add, that I actually support some additional regulation on Wall Street. Oh not because profits are bad, or somehow 'greedy'. Thats nonsense. People trying to earn money is not a bad thing. Unless its by selling guns or knowingly peddling defective products. Better regulating the financial sector is a good thing. Too bad we're being asked to trust that the government will get it right this time, when government regulators failed so spectacularly in the housing bubble and the Madoff scheme. But this time, this time those same regulators will get things right...

Myself, I'd rather set up a system where the financial industry regulates itself. Make it worthwhile to catch guys screwing up, and disincentivize bad behavior. Not sure it would be possible, but that would be the ideal. Not add more incompetent regulators looking over the shoulder of people trying to make a living. Or giving the government more power then it already has. I quite frankly don't want to live in a totalitarian state. If I wanted to live in one, I'd move to Venezuela.

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These changes are an improvement, for sure. The free market can continue freely to do what they do, providing they don't step over the line into the area of fraud. A free market without clear ethics is not a free market at all. If companies cannot set clear and acceptable ethics (as the financial crisis has shown some have not), then they need to be set externally. Once the framework is clear, the market becomes free once again.

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manfromamerica,

"for the unemployment issue, blame Barney Frank, Fannie and Freddie, the Obama deficits, "bailouts" and government takeovers, the health care socialism fiasco, and now the Senate Bill that caused a 6% drop in the Dow today."

No one with even an ounce of integrity would try to peddle this yarn you've spun. My memory isn't so poor as to forget that the economy was tanking long before Obama stepped into office and that financial institutions like AIG and Lehman Bros. were doing their part to usher along that collapse.

You might also be interested to know that economic change generally take months or even years to be seen, much less measured. It's that very fact that lends a degree of legitimacy to Conservative claims that the prosperity of the Clinton Years were the result of Reagan Era economic policies. You can't simply pick and choose which reality you choose to ackowledge depending on the direction of the wind.

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Molenir,

"not because profits are bad, or somehow 'greedy'. Thats nonsense. People trying to earn money is not a bad thing. Unless its by selling guns or knowingly peddling defective products."

You mean like knowingly peddling mortgage-back securities to Wall Street banks in order to generate quick profits before high-risk borrowers could inevitably default?

"Too bad we're being asked to trust that the government will get it right this time, when government regulators failed so spectacularly in the housing bubble and the Madoff scheme."

True, the government dropped the ball in a big way in actually regulating the way it was supposed to be. But the blame doesn't fall solely on the shoulders of the government. Large banks across the country knew that they were dealing in highly risky debt packages, and were warned by people like Warren Buffet that it was a bad idea. But the tantalizing prospect of high returns inherent with high risk seemed to blind financial institutions to dangers that could bring down their own houses.

This is where greed comes into the picture. Despite all the warning signs that the U.S. economy was heading towards a brick wall, banks continued to trade debt as a commodity up until the bitter end.

I understand that you're a big supporter of laissez faire economics, and in principle, I am too. But I think this ongoing recession provides a fairly compelling argument that the financial industry isn't really capable of or willing to police itself. This is when we should start questioning the wisdom of "profit at any cost."

In the very same way that you can't trust the government to do the right thing in all cases, when I look at the wreckage of the U.S. economy over the past 3 years, I can't bring myself to trust the financial industry to do the right thing either.

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LFR,

you can count on business to do the wrong thing, government if its run by business will of course do the wrong thing as well as it has under the republican control. Now, with democrats in place there is some progressive laws to help the country. That is the only hope the country has left.

Molenir, the banks spent millions and millions and sent an army of their hired goons to DC to stop this bill. The republicans took the money and helped them, the democrats prevailed. Try dealing in reality and not the made up world of talk radio and fox news.

Again, free markets are a myth. No one disputes that any longer. 2008 ended that fantasy for good. Not even the republicans believe that crap any longer, of course the tea baggers do but they are clueless anyway. They want government out of their medicare and social security.

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I understand that you're a big supporter of laissez faire economics, and in principle, I am too.

Need to correct you on this. I'm not a supporter of laissez faire. I think total free market is as big of a mistake as socialism and communism. None of them are good in my opinion. Some regulation is needed, simply to ensure that fraud isn't a part of the system. However this insistence on everything being done by the Federal government, that we should live our life, from birth to death being taken care of by the bureaucracy is wrong as well. The government should not remove risk from the equation. Thats part of the market, and an important part. Some people win, some people lose, you have to be aware of this. If you buy shares a low price, and sell them at a high, you bought them from someone else who lost money, and then sold them at their peak to someone who likewise lost money. But thats capitalism. It provides the opportunity to make a better life, not a guarantee. This said, how you can claim to be aligned with laisse faire economics, even in principle, and support a measure that moves towards total government control boggles the mind.

Again, in regards to this bill, I'm actually in favor of changes, I just don't see the government regulators that screwed up so badly before, as being the answer. Adding more rules to smaller lenders, and businesses not directly in the financial sector is a huge mistake, though one sought by Big Labor, and the bigger banks. They'll make money, the smaller banks will lose money.

Zurc - Molenir, the banks spent millions and millions and sent an army of their hired goons to DC to stop this bill. The republicans took the money and helped them, the democrats prevailed. Try dealing in reality and not the made up world of talk radio and fox news.

Do some research please, don't just drink Obamas kool-aid. SEIU thugs were totally pushing this. Bank of America, and many other large banks, once certain portions of the bill were removed, completely supported this as well. Try looking at reality, rather then just listening to liberal spin. Ask yourself this... Why is it that Auto Dealers, a segment of the economy extremely far removed from Wall Street, are being exempted from parts of this bill. Again this is not auto-makers, but auto-dealers. Did you not catch that after getting drunk on the kool-aid?

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Massachusetts superstar Senator and President-in-waiting Scott Brown supports it, so it must be good.

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Please answer - why are profits bad?

I already did, but I will again.

Banks sell a product, that product is called debt. A useful service to the economy, and the bank is entitled to profit from providing it.

The problem is that debt is money. Forget all the screaming about the government printing money and hyperinflation coming. Almost all money in the world is created by private banks, by making an entry in somebody's bank account. The hyperinflation has already come, it is called the last 25 years. Over the last 25 year we have created an uncontrolled banking sector and have had an unlimited creation of debt, because bankers are the same a dogs with an open bag of dog food. They can't stop, because creating debt makes them RICH. It is a transfer of wealth from debtor to creditor, as the debtor pays back the imaginary money he was lent from his earnings.

So what's the problem? Debt will be increased until the debt saturation point is reached. Until that point, the economy will be booming but be getting more and more out of whack (ie. sure, send those jobs to China, we don't need them). When it is reached, the economy crashes, because the amount of money/debt starts shrinking. And the bankers who created the crash and became rich from it now demand repayment, which they call "profit", which the government meekly hands over because of course, if the banks will go bankrupt and all that "money" people think they have will disappear.

It is a con that has been pulled over and over through history. The regulations to prevent it happening again were in place, but were of course removed. Why? Because people voted for the bankers, through their frontmen and women, nice old folks with big bags of candy who told them how great they all were. And the economic theories that explained what would happen were all there, but they were ignored and thrown away, because they were old and boring, and hey we want to make money!!!

Stealing money from the future is not "profit", it is just a magic trick. We are not even talking about profits, so the question is meaningless.

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Massachusetts superstar Senator and President-in-waiting Scott Brown supports it, so it must be good.

Heh, sorry but too many people understand him for what he is. He's merely a RINO. Despite the GQ spread, he hasn't got a chance in hell of getting the Republican party nomination for President. Christie from New Jersey though, he might have a shot based on how he is going.

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manfromamerica

adaydream -

good, because your dear Sen Reid is out. Many more to come. :-) Do you EVER disagree with Democrats? You really are a strict party-line shill.

Well, sure I do. Just not a lot lately. As for Sen Reid, he'll be replaced by a democrat. As for the elections in whole, sure we'll lose some seats. It's been forecasted ever since the last elections. But with politicians like Rand Paul, I'm not worried.

But back to this bill. I'm glad that some controls have been put on Wall Street and banks.

I'm not sure why Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac wasn't included in the bill. < :-)

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"I'm not sure why Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac wasn't included in the bill."

That's probably the only objection I have to this bill. It doesn't do anything to address one of the major facets of the meltdown, namely the handing out of time-bomb housing loans to highly unqualified borrowers.

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daydream:

" I'm not sure why Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac wasn't included in the bill. < :-) "

Because it is a democratic cash cow. But trust your politicians to know what is good for you, lol.

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Molenir,

You are arguing that this bill is a bad idea because of what it "could" do, although you think it unlikely. For the love of all that is holy man, think about what HAS BEEN DONE.

Wow. Really. Confirmable events make this more than necessary. Surely you can see that. The BP spill, ENRON, the Massey coal mines, I could go on forever.

You are more worried about something that you admit is improbable than you are over real disasters that have occurred due to a lack of regulation.

That's just dumb.

Taka

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The War on Prosperity continues.

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The War on Prosperity continues.

Well that's just dumb too.

Taka

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The problems this fixes have already run their course and it does nothing to address problems to come. Just another pointless display of political grandstanding with little thought and less substance.

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You are arguing that this bill is a bad idea because of what it "could" do, although you think it unlikely. For the love of all that is holy man, think about what HAS BEEN DONE.

Sorry Taka, didn't check this thread for a bit.

And regarding your point. Its a valid one, I grant it. The primary issue is solving the problems. However, if my problem is a backed up sewer, burning down the house is not the solution. And while I don't believe that this trick will be used, giving government bureaucrats more authority, authority they should not have is a bad precedent. Everytime we've seen it, its caused problems. Someone, eventually will misuse their power. Look at the EPA's recent efforts to regulate CO2. Nowhere in their charter was the regulation of breathing ever even contemplated. Yet here they are, trying to grab more power. This is the kind of situation this bill is creating. When you write a law, you have to look for the potential unintended consequences, and Dems in this case made huge error. I want to believe its inadvertent, that they didn't intend to create what is a huge potential step towards state control, but looking at how many opposed the Vitter amendment which would have fixed the issue, its hard to believe otherwise.

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They already had regulations in place after the Great Depression. That set of laws was called the Glass-Steagall Act, and it was designed to prevent a massive meltdown.

Some Republican nitwits created a law that was designed to repeal Glass-Steagall for the benefit of Wall Street, and President Clinton -- a Democrat, and supposed champion of the People -- signed it. Check WIKI if you don't believe me.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glass%E2%80%93Steagall_Act

The men who play golf with American senators run the country.

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Molenir,

How can you miss the point of all of this. Do you really think the government set up the EPA for no reason whatsoever?

Wow! Malfeasance by corporations has been going on for decades. Do you honestly believe that the "market will correct itself?" Good lord, you're living in a bubble.

Corportations calculate how much they can pay in fines to still reap a profit without consideration for the envioronment that you and yours live in.

Maybe you don't want to be protected from that but If that's the case, I'm sorry but you are making your decision out of sheer ignorance and naivety.

Corporations are not your friend. They are "for-profit" entities.

Man.

Taka

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Taka,

I'm aware of the corporate world. Heck, I work in it. There is a huge difference between that, and this. Please note, I've repeatedly expressed my opinion, that some level of government control is a good thing. Just not this much control. Government should be the referee, to keep the play fair, to punish the offenders, it should not be used as a player on one side or another, nor should the field belong to the government. But that is precisely what is happening here.

Do you really think the government set up the EPA for no reason whatsoever?

I'm talking about the law of unintended consequences. No one would believe that the EPA would try to regulate breathing, but thats precisely what they're doing. Water, Pollution, sure, but CO2? No. No one would have anticipated that Johnson's Great Society, would lead to years of endemic poverty, and ensure a generation of Blacks would be corrupted. But until the 90s, thats precisely what occurred.

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