Americans for Financial Reform will host a conference call for reporters and bloggers on Today at 12:00 PM EDT to discuss the impact of Wall Street speculation on gas prices. Wall Street gambling is driving up gas prices and putting a strain on the economic recovery and the pocket-books of working families and the middle class.
AFR sent a letter to members of the Senate Appropriations subcommittee on Financial Services today urging them to full fund the CFTC.
AFR sent a letter to the SEC and CFTC urging regulators not to revise and loosen their original definition of ‘swap dealer’.
“The last time we saw this speculative feeding frenzy was in 2008, when in July, amidst the meltdown in the credit and housing markets, speculators wildly ran up the price of crude oil to over $140 per barrel. Was the steroidal price explosion in 2008 due to increased demand or a significant reduction in supply? Trading volume was nearly 15 times world oil demand that year, according to research compiled by Americans for Financial Reform.”
AFR sent a letter to the House Agriculture Committee urging members to support the full funding of the CFTC in President Obama’s proposed 2013 budget.
“President Obama’s FY 2013 budget request would increase the CFTC budget to $308 million…also increases funding for the SEC to $1.566 billion…AFR strongly supports the increased funding levels, and believes that adequate funding for these regulators is vital to holding Wall Street accountable, and preventing another financial crisis. Huge volumes of hidden and un-backed derivatives trades were a key cause of the financial crisis. …With millions of Americans still out of work, more than $8 trillion lost in home values and retirement savings, and millions of foreclosures it could not be clearer that Wall Street must not be allowed to gamble in the shadows.”
“The final regulations are a ‘significant weakening’ of the CFTC’s original proposal, Marcus Stanley, policy director of Americans for Financial Reform, which includes AFL-CIO and other labor unions, said in an e-mail today. ‘The numerous opt-outs, exceptions, and safe harbors in the final rule can effectively give swap dealers a free pass out of compliance with key statutory protections,’ Stanley said.”
“Another consumer group shared Roper’s concerns. ‘These rules, unlike the initial proposal, are simply not sufficient to fully implement the Dodd-Frank protections,’ Americans for Financial Reform said in a release.”
Gov’t Shutdown Looms if ‘Mini-bus’ Isn’t Passed – Michelle Hirsch (The Fiscal Times)
“The Commodities Futures Trading Commission, for instance, is being asked to swallow a near one-third cut relative to what the Obama administration requested. …’The Dodd-Frank Act assigned massive new markets to CFTC oversight, leading to a 600 percent increase in the size of the CFTC’s supervisory responsibilities,’ said Lisa Donner, executive director of Americans for Financial Reform. ‘The funding level just advanced by the Conference Committee would barely allow the CFTC to expand its current oversight resources and would not permit the agency to implement its new responsibilities.’
Need-To-Know Memo – National Journal
Financial reform advocates are up in arms over the House-Senate conference ‘minibus’ appropriations bill that would slash roughly one-third of what President Obama requested to fund the Commodity Futures Trading Commission for 2012 to $205.3 million, raising questions about how it will be able to enforce new financial regulations. ‘This leaves the agency without the funding it needs to do its job and will make it impossible to implement key aspects of financial reform,’ said Lisa Donner, the executive director for Americans for Financial Reform, in a press release.