“…but blankets them with so much regulation that they are no longer really independent operators..”
I’ve been saying this for a while: Dodd-Frank is the financial service industry version of Obamacare. Well before Scott Brown made a big deal about his vote against Obamacare (a good thing) in starting his run for US Senate from here in NH but has tried to poo-poo his vote for Dodd-Frank. Certainly an unexplainable vote for him (“our system was in meltdown” said in a half-hearted way to me is NO explanation at all). In effect, Dodd-Frank will as severely handcuff and nationalize control of our financial system by political hacks just like those same hacks have done to our healthcare system. Thus, when I read this, my reaction was “well, boys, welcome to Club Obvious, late as you are” (reformatted, emphasis mine):
How ‘Dodd-Frank’ is becoming the new ‘Obamacare’
<snip>
If you don’t know what the Dodd-Frank Act is, Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.)told an audience last weekend, “it’s Obamacare for banks.” Ryan, outgoing chairman of the House Budget Committee, was echoing Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), who’s been using that expression since at least April (and he used it again Wednesday night). Expect to hear the expression more, particularly once a new, probably-Republican-led Senate takes over on Capitol Hill in January.
Dodd-Frank, a set of financial regulations passed in the wake of the financial crisis, has been cited by financial reporters, liberal publications, and (most importantly) Republican senators as a likely target for overhaul if the Senate changes hands. In particular, Dodd-Frank’s “Volcker Rule,” which limits speculative trading by banks, has been a Republican punching bag since its passage in 2010.
The origin of the newly in-vogue phrase appears to be a April 2012 Weekly Standard piece by Peter Wallison. “The best way to understand the Dodd-Frank Act,” Wallison wrote, “is to think of it as Obamacare for the financial industry. Like its health care counterpart, it leaves the members of the massive financial services industry as privately-owned firms, but blankets them with so much regulation that they are no longer really independent operators.”..
Get that last part, the important part??
That is Fascism! Socialism / COmmunism demands that the “means of production” are entirely owned by The State; Fascism (think Italy’s Mussolini) figured out that merely having Government controlling it was sufficient enough to accomplish the same thing – and Obamacare and Dodd-Frank have essentially put two of our largest sectors under Government Control. This is not a good thing at all for a country that has prided itself as “the Land of the Free” – there is no Freedom in having Government pre-make your choices for you, be they personal or corporately. Why?
Because once something is under Government control, Cronyism holds sway – the politically connected have the advantage and you have none at all. It is all the more galling when they tell you “It is for your own good” or worse, “It is for the common good”. The first says you are too stupid to make your own decisions – the second eliminates you altogether and makes it clear that your individual needs and wants don’t matter at all.
That OK with you?
It is ONLY because our healthcare system is much “closer” to us that most folks don’t realize how badly Dodd-Frank will restrict their personal financial freedoms going forward. Yet, we can thank both Jeanne Shaheen and Scott Brown for this monstrosity. She’s proud of it (until you are picking away at how it can harm you) and he’s now wishing that he didn’t have to know how to spell Dodd-Frank.
Remember, and never forget, the FRANK part of that name is after Barney Frank, the uber-Liberal former House member from MA; hardly a friend of Conservative Republican values.
