Is Dodd-Frank being rolled back while no one is looking? – Suzy Khimm (Washington Post)
March 28, 2012

“It’s par for the course for the GOP-controlled House to pass bills that few people notice and that ultimately go nowhere. But it’s rare for legislators to join hands across the aisle to roll back parts of President Obama’s signature legislative achievements. That’s what happened on Monday, when the House passed two little-noticed bills that changed the derivatives rules under the Dodd-Frank Act. … But critics of the bills, like Americans for Financial Reform, believe that the legislation could make substantive changes to Dodd-Frank that would increase risk and instability in the marketplace. By exempting end-users from margin requirements, corporations and Main Street firms could make bigger, riskier trades using derivative swaps, as they won’t be required to have cash reserves on hand in case the deals went bad.  ‘This can cause a liquidity crisis at the very time that the company is most vulnerable, resulting in a death spiral,’ Wallace Turbeville, a former Goldman Sachs vice president who now advocates market reform, wrote in 2010 during the Dodd-Frank debate.” Click here for more.