Financial Reform? More Like Union Giveaways!

by Warner Todd Huston | July 16, 2010 12:06 pm

On Thursday the Senate passed the Democrat’s financial reform bill. But even as Obama claims that this bill will “solve” the financial crisis, a look at the thing seems to prove that things financial took a back seat to giveaways to Obama’s union pals and sops to many of the Democrat’s other special interest friends.

The main union payback is the provision to allow unions and environut groups the ability to take control of the boardrooms of corporations in which they own stock through the so-called “proxy access” provision. This provision has been widely panned by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and other business groups.

The Washington Times reports[1] that there are other sops to Democrat special interests in this “financial reform” bill, too.

Business groups are also rankled that the legislation would impose costly new burdens on airlines, utilities and other non-financial businesses that were victims rather than villains in the crisis, simply because they use financial derivatives to hedge their businesses against risks such as fluctuations in oil prices, interest rates and currencies.

But as the Times notes, these “hedging” practices played no role in the financial collapse. Obviously, the Obama administration just wanted another way to control our business community in its inimitably socialist manner.

And what’s a good crisis if we can’t use it for some social engineering?

The bill would create more than 20 “offices of minority and women inclusion” at the Treasury, Federal Reserve and other government agencies, to ensure they employ more women and minorities and grant more federal contracts to more women- and minority-owned businesses.

The agencies also would apply “fair employment tests” to the banks and other financial institutions they regulate, though their hiring and contracting practices had little or nothing to do with the 2008 financial crisis.

Yeah, the economy tanked because there weren’t enough racial set-asides! Seems to me that one of the reasons the housing market collapsed was specifically because of the Democrat’s racial set-asides in cheap money mortgages through Fanny and Freddie. But let’s not let reality intrude on Obama’s grand plan to remake America in his Daddy’s and uncle Frank’s image.

This so-called reform bill stinks to high heaven as business as usual Democrat special interest gladhanding. So much for Obama’s “new” Washington.

(Originally posted at TheUnionLabelBlog.com[2])