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18 Jul 2010 09:21

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Politics: Financial reform: It has huge rewards for Obama – later on

  • It will have relatively little positive effect on 2010. It’s something Obama can take to the voters in 2012.
  • Rutgers University political scientist Russ Baker • Noting the limited political windfall financial reform will have for Obama in the near-term. On top of the complexity of the 2,300-page bill itself, it’s something where the benefits will have to touch consumers before it becomes clear how important the bill is. “It will be a long time before people get a sense that somehow their debit cards are better protected than they were before financial regulation reform was passed,” Baker said. source

15 Jul 2010 22:17

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U.S.: Financial reform bill? Many people didn’t know there was one

  • 38% of Americans didn’t even know that the landmark legislation even existed
  • 33% of Americans have heard about it, but don’t know what it is
  • 29% know at least a little bit about it; only 3 percent know the bill well source

15 Jul 2010 12:11

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U.S.: Key votes in the Senate’s passage of finance reform

  • 60-38 the initial vote to allow the real vote
  • didThe three more moderate East-coast members of the GOP – Scott Brown, Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins.
  • didn’tRuss Feingold, that scallion of Wisconsin, felt the bill didn’t go far enough. Oh, and Robert Byrd just died. source
  • » So, what’s next? Well, in a couple of hours, the bill will go through the real vote, at which point it will head to Obama. Then, ta-da! It becomes law.

15 Jul 2010 11:55

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25 Jun 2010 09:22

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Biz: It took all freaking night, but we have a finance reform deal

  • Quite frankly, common sense prevailed. … Our objectives were to get the risky stuff out of banks. We figured out how to do that.
  • Sen. Blanche Lincoln • On her derivatives proposal, the meat of which was kept in a last-minute deal brokered waaaaaaaaaaaaay past bedtime. Obviously, most of this stuff will fly over non-investors’ heads, but the deal essentially allows banks to keep using derivatives on less-risky investments – foreign exchange, interest rate, gold and silver swaps, and hedges on their own investments – while forcing them to spin off separate companies for their riskiest derivatives. You know, the ones that caused the financial crisis, like cleared and uncleared commodities, agricultural, energy and equities swaps, and credit. Some biz-friendly Democrats wanted to railroad this, but failed. Nice save. source