Reflection on Ethics

Rolling Stone: Reflection and Summary

The article was written after the Dodd-Frank bill celebrated its two-year anniversary. And the most interesting fact is only one third of 398 rules making this requirement a law are finalised. This brings thought to mind that Is the law moving fast enough to seriously eradicate the problem and to bring the desired changes in the financial system or it is just another game plan to loot the people and delaying in bringing justice to the people.

It feels like during the time when working on Dodd-Frank started to took place, at the same time Wall Street started to create strategy and waited patiently to kill the rules, which meant to constrain their industry.

To my understanding, the bill was implemented for the few of the following reasons:

• Promoting transparency to the financial systems.
• To protect consumers from abusive financial services practices.
• Multiple agencies were created under the legislation such as: FSOC, CFPB.
• Powers of established agencies also changes such as: SEC.
• Banks are prohibited from making speculative bets.

The author, Matt Tabibi, points out various facts involved in killing of the financial reforms:

Step 1: “Kill it in the womb”: He points out that Dodd-Frank was not a though bill to pass. Obama was in the same shoe as President Roosevelt after 1929 crash. He needed to force Wall Street to make their trading more transparent but what actually happened was Wall Street lobbyists and their allies got to work. Though most of the new regulatory survived in the bill but with having years of furious debates and negotiations in the Senate, the rules were tossed off with riddles and humor.  

Step 2:” Sue, Sue, Sue”: He stated that if killing the litigations did not work, the bank took the new laws to the court. Wall Street went upto an extent where they sued regulators for not running new legislation through enough cost benefit analysis.

Step 3:"If you can't beat it, stall.": Dodd-Frank was supposed to be implemented in October 2010, but the SEC decided on a stay, giving comfortable time to at the last minute, essentially giving the Chamber of Commerce to prepare its lawsuit to permanently kill the rule.