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One thing can be said about the current debate over the administration's financial regulation plan, or at least Senator Chris Dodd's version: the debate has sharpened the issues so that Dodd, the Democrats, and the administration can no longer hide behind slogans. If the administration thought that the bill could be passed simply because the American people resent Wall Street and the big banks, they may have guessed wrong. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has called them on this, and pointed out that the Dodd bill has some troubling provisions. This required Dodd, in a speech yesterday, to defend the provisions of the bill. The fact that he did it with misinformation is really a step forward, considering where the administration and he have been for the last few weeks.
Does the bill, as McConnell said, "institutionalize too big to fail?" Of course. There can't be any reasonable doubt about this. The bill authorizes the Fed to regulate all non-bank financial institutions that are "systemically important" or might cause instability in the U.S. financial system if they failed. These words mean something"”that the companies designated for Fed regulation are too big to fail. It's so obvious that it should not have to be repeated, but it seems that Dodd and the administration believe that as long as they don't actually say these companies are too big to fail no one will notice.
That, with all respect, is ridiculous. The market will see immediately that the government has created Fannie Maes and Freddie Macs in every sector of the financial system where these large companies are designated for Fed regulation, including insurance companies, hedge funds, finance companies, bank holding companies, securities firms, and any other kind of financial institution the government wants to regulate. Since these firms will be too big to fail, they will be seen in the market"”as Fannie and Freddie were seen"”as ultimately backed by the government and thus safer firms to lend to than small firms that are not government backed. This will permanently distort the financial market, favoring large companies over small ones, and eventually force a consolidation of each market where these firms exist into a few large competitors operating under the benign supervision of the government.
Does the bill, as McConnell has said, provide for permanent bailouts? Yes, again without question. The administration and the Democrats, especially Dodd, seem wounded by this suggestion. To them it seems obvious that this can't be true. Why, they protest, the bill says that these firms have to be wound down, not bailed out. But why then is there a $50 billion fund set up to assist this wind down? In his statement yesterday on the Senate floor, in which he said the opposition had used "falsehoods" to oppose his bill, Dodd said: "And middle class families on Main Street won't have to pay a penny: the largest Wall Street firms will have to put up money for a $50 billion fund to cover the costs of liquidating the failed financial firm." The costs of liquidating the failed financial firm? What might those costs be?
The answer is that the $50 billion will be used to pay off the creditors, so that the market's fear of a general collapse will be allayed. Remember, the theory under which the administration and Dodd are operating is that the failure of one of these large companies will cause a systemic breakdown or instability in the economy. The way to avoid that is to assure the market"”in other words the creditors"”that they will be paid. Otherwise, they will run from the failing company, and every other company similarly situated. That act"”paying off the creditors when the government takes over a failing firm"”is a bailout. It doesn't matter that the management lose their jobs, or that the shareholders get nothing. When the creditors are aware that they will get a better deal with the failure of a large company than they will get with a small one that goes the ordinary route to bankruptcy, that is a bailout. And the signal it sends to the market is the most dangerous part of this bailout, because it tells the market that creditors will be taking less risk when they lend to small companies than if they lend to large ones, and this"”as noted above"”will simply provide the credit advantages to large companies that will not be available to small companies. Again, like too big to fail, this will distort and suppress competition in financial markets.
Both these provisions, then, have the potential to change and restructure our competitive financial system and thus the very nature of our economy. Republicans are right to oppose them with every resource available.
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