On behalf of Americans for Financial Reform (AFR), we are writing to oppose HR 5143, the “International Insurance Standards Act”. …Even without the amendment, HR 5143 places unreasonable and unworkable barriers on international negotiations important to the oversight of global insurance companies. We should not forget that an insurance company, AIG, was at the center of the 2008 financial crisis and received the largest taxpayer bailout in U.S. history. The $182 billion AIG bailout went to cover losses in investment banking type activities like the sale of credit default swaps and the securities lending business.
Reinstating Glass-Steagall has emerged as a major topic of debate this year, culminating with the inclusion of support for the policy in the platform of both major parties. What’s behind this surge of interest? Why is the Glass-Steagall division between commercial and investment banking such a critical issue eight
“Advocates from Take on Wall Street, an alliance of labor, consumer, community, religious, and netroots organizations, were on Capitol Hill this morning, telling key Congressional leaders to support a new Glass-Steagall Act. The groups delivered a petition with more than 350,000 signatures, calling on House Financial Services Committee Chair Jeb Hensarling (R-TX), as well as Senate Banking Committee chair Richard Shelby and others, to follow through on a policy backed by both the Democratic and Republican Party platforms.”
The 2008 financial crisis—which brought on a devastating recession and painful recovery—was in large part a failure of shadow banking credit markets. These credit markets—also referred to as market-based finance—are large and sometimes ill-defined parts of the financial system that connect borrowers and savers and
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“These regulatory assessments add yet more weight to the case for aggressive action to realize the promise made in the Dodd-Frank Act that ‘too big to fail’ will be ended. The findings open the door to such action by authorizing regulators to place additional controls on the five banks whose plans were officially found to be ‘not credible’ if these banks do not meet the October 1st deadline for remediating the issues identified in the resolution plans. The regulators’ action also starts the two year clock in Dodd-Frank on the potential breakup or restructuring of these banks.”
“Yesterday the Federal Reserve issued its final rule on emergency lending. In response to bipartisan criticism of the 2013 proposal from, among others, Senators Elizabeth Warren and David Vitter, Representative Jeb Hensarling, and Americans for Financial Reform, the Federal Reserve has significantly modified its initial proposal.”
“Wall Street remains dominated by giant banks that have only grown larger since the 2008 financial crisis. The existence of these ‘too big to fail’ banks can distort markets and presents a risk to the public that may once again be called on to bail them out. Section 165 of the Dodd-Frank Act takes on this problem by requiring banks to submit resolution plans which demonstrate that they are not ‘too big to fail’ – that in case of failure they can be resolved through a conventional bankruptcy process. If they cannot demonstrate this, regulators must require banks to simplify and downsize their operations.”
“Wall Street remains dominated by giant banks that have only grown larger since the 2008 financial crisis. The existence of these ‘too big to fail’ banks can distort markets and presents a risk to the public that may once again be called on to bail them out. Section 165 of the Dodd-Frank Act takes on this problem by requiring banks to submit resolution plans which demonstrate that they are not ‘too big to fail’ – that in case of failure they can be resolved through a conventional bankruptcy process. If they cannot demonstrate this, regulators must require banks to simplify and downsize their operations.”
