As Expected: Wall Street Financial Reform Not Much More Than Window Dressing

Those in charge and rich get to make the rules to benefit themselves. No more so than the debacle that U.S. banking elitists have wrought upon the American people and the global economy. Enough has been written on it, the whys and wherefores, the impotent, greedy politicians and much more. Here at the end of the financial reform bill, we see they will change as little as possible, preserve as much of their ability to continue their ways which quite simply and quite obviously has their duty to the good of their country and to the good of the world far down their list of values and priorities.

“After the dust settles, and they’ve crossed all the Ts, there’s probably not going to be much difference in how the banking industry looks — that’s the long and short of it,” said Raymond Stewart, chief investment officer of Rasara Strategies, which specializes in investing in the financial sector.

Moreover, the legislation leaves largely untouched some of the biggest concerns about the financial industry that grew out of the mortgage meltdown and the resulting credit crisis. These include worries that banks have grown so powerful that they are “too big to fail,” and that Wall Street’s pay system — built on the annual bonus — has made short-term trading profits the primary focus.

In the U.S. the pronouncements of how Chinese citizens should “fear” their government grow weaker by the day when it is the 100 million or so middle class American citizens who sit in their homes waiting in fear with bated breath for the next piece of bad news to be fousted upon them by their government and banking elite.

In contrast, the daily life of the Chinese gets better and better to a degree unprecedented in modern history; their careers, their opportunities, the amazing infrastructure rebuilding of their cities. Here inside China, there is more prosperity, cash, opportunity and entrepreneurial freedom than ever. Yes it is far from perfect, but who is responsible for this state of affairs? As in the United States, the government is responsible. Those who know me know I am not political; I am not anti-U.S. or pro- China. I am anti bad choices that destroy and take. I am pro good choices which enable productivity, opportunity and meaning. Indeed I can easily be accused of being an idealist and I won’t change in that regard. When I gain I would like it to be that those around me or even unknown and elsewhere gain too. Human history has shown us over and over the nature of man whereby for the most part this is apparently too much to ask and too much to expect of this life.

Too often I think about the inescapable reality that for at least 70% of the world’s population, their daily life is not much more than a frustrating, painful struggle just to get by, if not much worse. And why is this so? Because this is the nature of life? Not at all. It is because of the series of choices made by those in power. For many of us, there is a defense, a response available to help elevate our own situation. It is to become intelligent on the matters of investing, trading and economics. It is to understand, for example, that in fact if you do happen to have EURO $10,000, that it should be in a multi-currency account and that for the past year that money should have been stored in USD, not EURO. If so, your money would now be worth 20% more, instead of just the 1% interest the bank offers. If you converted that money back to EURO now you would have 12,000 instead of 10,000. And this result is your substantial low risk benefit simply because you became more intelligent about the basics of money, investing, assets in today’s world. This is information for the common man to know and benefit from. It is not information reserved for Wharton MBA’s and Wall Street traders.

Link to the financial reform article at the LA Times

Read the original story at Mario Cavolo