Banks `Dodged a Bullet' as U.S. Congress Dilutes Trading Rules

The banks are the government, and this crisis is purposeful and controlled. You think they're doing something to stop it from happening, when in reality all they've done is strengthened their hand.

Bloomberg -

Legislation to overhaul financial regulation will help curb risk-taking and boost capital buffers. What it won’t do is fundamentally reshape Wall Street’s biggest banks or prevent another crisis, analysts said.

A deal reached by members of a House and Senate conference early this morning diluted provisions from the tougher Senate bill, limiting rather than prohibiting the ability of federally insured banks to trade derivatives and invest in hedge funds or private equity funds.

Banks “dodged a bullet,” said Raj Date, executive director for Cambridge Winter Inc.’s center for financial institutions policy and a former Deutsche Bank AG executive. “This has to be a net positive.”

Hashed out almost two years after the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression, the legislation shepherded by Senate Banking Committee Chairman Christopher Dodd and House Financial Services Chairman Barney Frank places limits on potentially risky activities such as proprietary trading or over-the-counter derivatives and gives regulators new powers to seize and wind down large, complex institutions if needed.

The overhaul, which still requires approval from the full Congress, won’t shrink banks deemed “too big to fail,” leaving largely intact a U.S. financial industry dominated by six companies with a combined $9.4 trillion of assets. The changes also do little to solve the danger posed by leveraged companies reliant on fickle markets for funding, which can evaporate in a panic like the one that spread in late 2008.

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