More On The Deregulating Of America

2:49 am EST October 3rd, 2008 | Republicans | 1 Comment

Another story about the consequences of the sort of deregulation and lack of oversight championed for years by the conservative movement and people like Sen. McCain.

After 55 minutes of discussion, which can now be heard on the Web sites of the agency and The Times, the chairman, William H. Donaldson, a veteran Wall Street executive, called for a vote. It was unanimous. The decision, changing what was known as the net capital rule, was completed and published in The Federal Register a few months later.

With that, the five big independent investment firms were unleashed.

In loosening the capital rules, which are supposed to provide a buffer in turbulent times, the agency also decided to rely on the firms’ own computer models for determining the riskiness of investments, essentially outsourcing the job of monitoring risk to the banks themselves.

Over the following months and years, each of the firms would take advantage of the looser rules. At Bear Stearns, the leverage ratio — a measurement of how much the firm was borrowing compared to its total assets — rose sharply, to 33 to 1. In other words, for every dollar in equity, it had $33 of debt. The ratios at the other firms also rose significantly.

The 2004 decision for the first time gave the S.E.C. a window on the banks’ increasingly risky investments in mortgage-related securities.

But the agency never took true advantage of that part of the bargain. The supervisory program under Mr. Cox, who arrived at the agency a year later, was a low priority.

…

“It’s a fair criticism of the Bush administration that regulators have relied on many voluntary regulatory programs,” said Roderick M. Hills, a Republican who was chairman of the S.E.C. under President Gerald R. Ford. “The problem with such voluntary programs is that, as we’ve seen throughout history, they often don’t work.”

This “voluntary” stuff, like the “voluntary” environmental guidelines that polluters just laugh at, is a core value of the modern conservative movement as practiced by the Republican party. We are at one of those turning points in America where rightist government policy has been laid bare for all to see and suffer from. It doesn’t work. It fails. It makes the same wealth holders at the top of the pyramid more wealthy and makes life harder and less secure for the rest of us from the middle all the way down to the bottom.

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One Response to “More On The Deregulating Of America”

  1. Tom Poe says:
    October 3, 2008 at 4:36 pm

    September 19, 2008, the Party of Small Government became the Party of Corporate Welfare. Please replace all future references to Republicans with Party of Corporate Welfare. By the way, America does not tolerate corporate welfare.