Big Banks Dig In for a Battle Against Tougher Regulation! 
"As the financial crisis entered one of its darkest phases in October, a handful of the nation's largest banks began holding daily telephone sessions. Murmurs were already emanating from Washington about the need for a wide-ranging regulatory overhaul, and Wall Street executives girded for a fight.
"Atop the agenda during their calls how to counter an expected attempt to rein in credit default swaps and other derivatives, the sophisticated and profitable financial instruments that were intended to limit risk but instead had helped take the economy to the brink of disaster."
What so-called credit swaps and derivatives achieved for the big banks that profited from them was to transform banks into complicated gambling casinos.
"The nine biggest participants in the derivative market -- including J.P. Morgan-Chase, Goldman Sachs, Citigroup and Bank of America -- created a lobbying organization, the CDs Dealers Consortium, on November 13, a month after five of its members accepted federal bailout money."
Award themselves? When the Glass-Steagall Act, which contained tight bank regulation oversight was overthrown, con artists went to work to exploit the U.S. banking system any way their corrupt minds could conceive.
That they succeeded beyond even their wildest expectations is evident in the multi-million dollar bonuses they awarded themselves joyously. But in their trail of economic terror, they left the U.S. economy in shambles.
Apparently, having observed so few of these banking titans properly punished, scores of bankers now want to persist in the very patterns that crashed the U.S. economic system.
Their bailout came from money paid by the U.S. taxpayer. Why weren't caps put on future bank chieftain bonuses. Were the U.S. government bailout arrangers as corrupt as the bankers they were bailing out? That is the question!
The article resumes:
"To oversee the consortium's push, lobbying records show the banks hired a longtime Washington power broker who previously helped fend off derivatives regulation: Edward J. Rosen, a partner at the law firm Cleary, Gottlieb, Steen & Hamilton. A confidential memo Mr. Rosen drafted and shared with the Treasury Department and leaders on Capitol Hill has politicians and market participants say, played a pivotal role in shaping the debate over derivative regulation.
"Those who favor more regulation say it would offer early warning signals when companies take on too much risk and would help avert catastrophic surprises like the huge derivative losses at the giant insurer the American International Group, which has so far received more than $170 billion in taxpayer commitments. The banks say too much regulation will stifle financial innovation and economic growth."
That argument falls flat. Hard working U.S. taxpayers have been forced to bail out either inefficient or corrupt bankers.
What next?
Will taxpayers be asked to cover Las Vegas gambling losses of big time gamblers with Washington connections?
KEYWORDS: Bank Regulation, Covering Losses for Major Banks
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