Obama Finds G.O.P. Resistance in Meeting on Financial Bill

Source: NY Times

WASHINGTON — In the face of stiff opposition from Senate Republicans, President Obama urged leaders of both parties in Congress to spend the next few weeks producing a financial regulation bill that would head off the need for bailouts in the future and bring the trading of complex financial instruments out of the shadows.

During a meeting with leaders of Congress from both parties in the Cabinet Room Wednesday morning, the president rejected the contention of Republicans — and notably their leader in the Senate, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky — that the measure offered by Senate Democrats would only make bailouts more likely.

“I am absolutely confident that the bill that emerges is going to be a bill that prevent bailouts — that’s the goal,” Mr. Obama said, with Mr. McConnell sitting impassively nearby.

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/15/business/15regulate.html?hp

Republicans don't want financial regulation. Jesus Christ--WHO is surprised by this?

Water is wet.

I am very interested in how this plays and how much coverage it gets.

“We cannot allow endless taxpayer-funded bailouts,” Mr. McConnell said. “That’s why we must not pass the financial reform bill that’s about to hit the floor. The fact is, this bill wouldn’t solve the problems that led to the financial crisis. It would make them worse.”

From MSNBC

Republicans are seizing on a provision that would allow regulators to step in to dismantle large, troubled firms. They argue that would set the stage for "endless" bailouts of Wall Street, a claim the White House says is false.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/36499063/ns/business-us_business/

But you can see the strategy already. The GOP is against the government being able to "take over" institutions, much as the FDIC does, prior to collapse. They want the companies to have to actually "fail" first, and then the government step in. It is probably true that in the former, there will be more take overs than actually letting them fail since occasionally some banks will recover. The problem is, exactly what we saw, is that if you essentially wait for them to fail, it is the "too big to fail" problem all over again where the tax payer gets stuck cleaning up the mess long after it has become extrodinarily expensive. The government would rather get ahold of the company before it has been sucked dry of any capital and assets that could be used to restructure and sell off the company and/or its assets.

Shelia Bair {FDIC} has worked to get other banks to buy failing ones to keep them afloat. She arranged for Wells Fargo to buy my bank Wachovia instead of Citigroup who was trying to get it for a smile. She lists the bank failures at the FDIC website and has a lot of info there. But these banks were going to the FDIC window for loans long before the collapse made news. The bigger banks were using loans to buy up the smaller ones for deposits. We definately need more transparancey but I'm not sure the FED is the one to do that. I'd rather have Elizabeth Warren and a panel of her choosing or Brooksley Born.

headline won't change for 7 more years.

But: will he continue to cave or will he push through the resistance?

just so he's not taken too off guard by this development.

Hopefully he is aware of that.

Obama would find GOP resistance if he said that we're on the planet earth!

:eyes:
rocktivity

Now they don't want to prevent future bailouts? Talk about out of the mainstream!