Deregulation solves everything. Deregulation is magic. Deregulation is your father

Nathan Newman's little article about the failure of deregulation and the current financial crisis made me have an equally little thought -- remember after one of the more recent Wall Street shocks, I think it was the Bear Stearns collapse, when McCain went on TV and gave a big speech where he said the answer to our problems was more transparency and a simpler tax code?

My thought: Boy, that was stupid.

Bush & Paulson's Awful New Financial "Regulation" Scheme

STILL IN CANADA STOP -- CAN ONLY COMMUNICATE BY TELEGRAM STOP -- LOOK AT THIS BULLSHIT STOP --

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Bush administration is proposing a sweeping overhaul of the way the government regulates the nation's financial services industry from banks and securities firms to mortgage brokers and insurance companies.

The plan would give major new powers to the Federal Reserve... the Fed would be given broad authority to oversee financial market stability.

SOUNDS GOOD RIGHT STOP -- EXCEPT THE ACTUAL PLAN DOES NO SUCH THING STOP --

While the plan could expose Wall Street investment banks and hedge funds to greater scrutiny, it carefully avoids a call for tighter regulation.

The plan would not rein in practices that have been linked to the housing and mortgage crisis, like packaging risky subprime mortgages into securities carrying the highest ratings.

The plan would give the Fed some authority over Wall Street firms, but only when an investment bank’s practices threatened the entire financial system.

And the plan does not recommend tighter rules over the vast and largely unregulated markets for risk sharing and hedging, like credit default swaps, which are supposed to insure lenders against loss but became a speculative instrument themselves and gave many institutions a false sense of security.

Parts of the plan could reduce the power of the Securities and Exchange Commission, which is charged with maintaining orderly stock and bond markets and protecting investors... The blueprint also suggests several areas where the S.E.C. should take a lighter approach to its oversight. Among them are allowing stock exchanges greater leeway to regulate themselves and streamlining the approval of new products, even allowing automatic approval of securities products that are being traded in foreign markets.

IF THIS IS "BROAD AUTHORITY" THEN I'M THE QUEEN OF ENGLAND STOP -- IT'S JUST A TROJAN HORSE FOR RIGHT-WING DEREGULATIONISM STOP -- ANYONE WHO THINKS THIS WILL END THE CURRENT FINANCIAL CRISIS NEEDS THEIR HEAD EXAMINED STOP -- THIS IS WHY WE NEED DEMOCRATS IN POWER STOP

ENJOY THE REST OF SPRING BREAK AND SEE YOU ALL NEXT WEEK STOP