Saturday, May 22, 2010

Understanding the Senate's Finance Bill

We should discuss the major components of the finance bill passed in the Senate soon.


Here they are:

- It provides for the oversight of sale of derivatives
- It creates a Consumer Protection Agency
- It creates a council of regulators to look for systemic risk
- It applies restrictions on large failed banks
- It establishes that executive compensation be set by independent directors
- It prohibits banks from making investments that do not benefit clients
- It establishes that companies selling complex financial products must retain part of the risk of these products.

For amendments that failed, click here.
If you have time to kill, here's the bill itself.

The bill now goes to a conference committee where it will be reconciled with the House bill already passed. Nothing is set in stone, but typical lobbying rules do not seem to apply, almost certainly due to voter anger.