For the past six months, I know I’ve been kept awake by one haunting fear — the fear of over-regulation of the financial sector. I toss and I turn. I mean, what if congress over-regulates the banks? Something terrible might happen. Maybe it would lead to, I dunno, a total collapse of the world financial system and a massive global recession. That’d suck. So that’s why I’m really worried that congress might over-regulate things. After all, just think of the sorry situation today’s bankers are in. They’ve lost a ton of money. Sure they’re still richer than 99 percent of the population. And, sure, unlike that 99 percent of the population they seem to be frauds who wrecked the economy. But still, don’t you just feel sorry for them? Don’t you just wish someone was around to soak up some of their remaining cash as campaign contributions to protect us from the perils of over-regulation?
I sure do. I mean, who knows what calamities await us if we “go too far” in reigning them in. So good news!
Pro-business House Democrats are seizing on the high-stakes issue of writing new financial rules as a way to gain clout — and a few headlines — in the larger, crowded Democratic Caucus.
And President Barack Obama may very well need their help, too.
The New Democrat Coalition, comprising 60-plus centrist Democrats, are planning a news conference early next week to unveil its principles for revamping financial market regulation, Politico has learned.
I’m glad these folks are “pro-business.” Speaking personally, I feel like a big problem with the Bush administration and the congressional GOP is that they didn’t look sympathetically on business priorities. We could really use more clout for business-friendly politicians. The little guy’s gotten a bit uppity of late. Someone needs to save us.