Barney Frank Proposes Weaker Consumer Protection Agency

Has Big Government Agency protected the American consumer? Look no further than the SEC, FDIC, and Federal Reserve. Under the protection and sentry of the SEC, investors loss billions of dollars to Ponzi schemes of Madoff and Sanford; to scams and frauds of Enron's Ken Lay, of Worldcom's Bernie Ebber, of Adelphi's Rigas, of Tyco's Kozlowski, of Qwest's Nacchio, of Equity Funding's Robert Vesco, etc, etc, the long list goes on. Under the scrutiny and supervision of the FDIC and former FSLIC, financial institutions gambled away trillions of dollars requiring bailouts from American taxpayers to halt another financial crisis. In the '70s FSLIC died when it became insolvent as the saving and loan scams proved too costly and the American taxpayer ultimately became the insurer. Today, FDIC is insolvent but for Congress appropriating another hundred billion of dollars on top of previous appropriations. As for the EPA enforcement of the Clean Air, Clean Land, and Clean Water Act, there are more egregious pollution violators today than the past. Finally, the Big Bankers in the Federal Reserve's have manipulated the money supply to serve their greed at the expense of the American economy. Example: The Federal Reserve has given free money to the Big Bankers who in turn receive interest on their deposit with the Federal Reserve. To this day, the Federal Reserve does not want an audit that would identify the recipient of the trillions of TARP and Open-Teller-Window money. On top of all of the above incompetent agencies, Freddi and Fannie allowed certain mortgage brokers/lenders to loot the taxpayer similar to the FCC looking away as the wireless tele-com rip-off consumers. Big Government has created a false sense of security and a moral hazard. More often than not, regulators are fornicating with their business counterpart. To paraphrase a question from a former American president, “Are you better off today with more government?” The American people needs Barney Frank's solution of more government like they need another trillion dollar rip-off from Wall Street. What America need is the dismantling of inept agencies such as the SEC, Federal Reserve, FDIC, and the EPA.

Sit, Blue Dog, sit! Good, Blue Dog! Nice, Blue Dog! Now be a good little doggy and lie down and play dead! On second thought, lie down and stay dead! GOOD boy!

What gives here anyway? I grew up believing that the Democratic party was the "party of the people"! I was reminded of this again last weekend when I made a little pilgrimage to the FDR Library in Hyde Park, NY. President Roosevelt ushered regular people like you and I into the twentieth century. He brought electricity to the rural south! The middle class that we all now take for granted - which hadn't even existed prior to the New Deal - is now in serious danger of vanishing. Look around you. The signs - ominous and disturbing - are all there. The entire reason for the existence of the Loony Right Wing since 1964 has been to roll back the advantages gained by the New Deal and the civil rights movement. Do you think I'm being an alarmist? Fine. Just keep sending these Right Wing extremists and these Blue Dog Democrats to Washington and see what happens.

The Democrats are not going to distinguish their party by trying to sell themselves as Republican Lite. They're not going to turn America around by foolishly preserving the policies of the last thirty years. They need to educate their constituency by showing them the folly of their abhorrence of things "Left" and "Liberal". Three-quarters-of-a-century ago, American democracy was saved by a government that was decidedly left-of center in all but a few areas. It can happen again. But it's only going to happen if WEEDA PEEPOLE refuse to turn right at the next crossroad. It is only down the road.

http://www.tomdegan.blogspot.com

Tom Degan
Goshen, NY

Americans do not need another immortal Federal bureaucracy that is not needed and overlaps with other government agencies. The latest mortgage fiasco, Madoff fraud and other problems could have been prevented if EXISTING Congress and government regulatory agencies did their job properly. The proposed Consumer Protection Agency is just more political posturing by an opportunistic Obama administration.

With the regulations put in place during FDR we had NO major banking/finance problems for Decades!
It was only with the cowboy yeh-hah Reagan days that this was loosened up, and sure enough we had major problems in a few years. Then it got worse under Bush and the Neo-Con's, although the Clinton administration could have done better too.

Regulation should be efficent, as simple and straight forward as possible. Maybe existing agencies can handle it, but certainly someone needs to put some brakes on finance.