As most Americans struggle to pay their share, we can’t help but notice that Wall Street is not. Many of the economic problems we face today, from deficits to unemployment, were in large part created by …

AFR sent a letter to the House voicing our strong opposition to HR 2586, the “Swaps Execution Facility Clarification Act”. HR 2586 would undermine a key element of derivatives reform – the attempt to create transparent, competitive markets for previously ‘dark’ over-the-counter (OTC) derivatives.

“The report was commissioned by Morgan Stanley, one of the big banks lobbying to ease the regulation. But IHS maintains its analysis, content and conclusions are entirely independent. …However, Americans for Financial Reform, an advocacy coalition supporting the legislation, took issue with the report. ‘This is just the latest in a series of industry-funded studies ordered up by financial market interests expressly to undermine the Volcker Rule,’ executive director Lisa Donner told CNBC in response to a question. ‘They don’t want to have to stop the profitable and risky proprietary trading that the Volcker rule bans, and they are grasping at straws to protect the status quo.’”

“In a March 27 letter to members of the committee, Americans for Financial Reform writes that the swaps bill, introduced last October by Rep. Scott Garrett, R-N.J., chairman of the House Financial Services Subcomittee on Capital Markets, ‘would undermine’ the regulatory regime for derivatives laid out by Congress in the Dodd-Frank act ‘by exempting any derivatives transaction between a U.S. swap dealer and a non-U.S. entity from all the major protections contained in Title VII of the Dodd-Frank Act,’ with the one exception being reporting requirements to regulators.”

“Also on Tuesday the Financial Services Committee approved a bill to limit the international reach of new U.S. swaps and derivative rules. …The group Americans for Financial Reform, a strong backer of Dodd-Frank, warned the bill would allow U.S. banks to evade oversight. ‘In addition to seriously undermining the basic transparency and accountability requirements in the U.S., such a ‘race to the bottom’ would be a serious blow to the entire international effort to make derivatives markets safer,’ the group said in a statement.”

AFR and CFA sent a join letter to the House urging members to vote NO on the final passage of the JOBS Act.