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Senate punts on Volcker Rule
Howard Richman, 5/21/2010

Having learned nothing from the BP oil spill, partly caused by a failure of government regulators to require testing of deep-sea shut-off valves, the United States Senate just passed a financial reform bill which relies upon the intelligence and incorruptibility of government regulators.

What was actually needed was the Volcker Rule, proposed by Obama's competent economic advisor, former Fed Chairman Paul Volcker. That rule would have  broken up "too big to fail" banks so that they would no longer be too big. The UK Guardian has a summary of the bill. Here's what it says about the Volcker Rule:

Will deposit-taking banks have to to spin off their proprietary trading arms and sell stakes in hedge funds and private equity firms? This is the Volcker rule, named after former Fed chairman Paul Volcker, who has argued for a complete separation of banks' risky "casino" activities from their commercial operations. Obama wants the Volcker rule implemented, but the Senate bill states that regulators will write the precise detail of the rule in the future.

Comment by Dean Striker, 5/24/2010:

IOW, they'll pass a law, but we won't know what it really is until a pack of tyrants write us yet another set of rules without needing the consent of anyone except themselves. 

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