Regulations Gutted:  A column by Kathleen Pender in the San Francisco Chronicle (“Financial Regulations Gutted in New Bill,” March 11, 2012) asks why Democrats, who supported Dodd-Frank and created the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, are “solidly backing a bill that would weaken or obliterate many regulations designed to safeguard investors.”  Pender writes that the bill “would make it easier for companies to raise money from the public without fulfilling some – or in certain cases virtually all – of the obligations designed to protect investors in public companies” without offering any guarantees “that companies would use any of the money to hire a single person.”  Pender notes that Consumer Federation of America, AARP, the North American Securities Administrators Association, and Americans for Financial Reform have all opposed aspects of the bill, and she quotes former SEC Chairman Arthur Levitt saying, “The bill is a disgrace.”

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2012/03/11/BUPU1NIGVF.DTL&ao=2