News Item: Goldman Sachs Sets Aside Ten Billion Dollars for Bonuses
"the GOP candidates are unanimous in their desire to kill the new post-crash rules crafted to end reckless speculation by big banks and Wall Street firms. Gingrich has gone so far as to call for the Democratic authors of the law, Chris Dodd and Barney Frank, to be jailed for "killing small banks, crippling small businesses, driving down the value of housing and creating corrupting Washington controls over the biggest banks." Repeal of Dodd-Frank would allow Wall Street firms like Goldman Sachs to return to the days of secretly trading trillions in derivatives contracts and betting against their own clients. It would also kill off the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the agency set up by Elizabeth Warren to prevent average Americans from being suckered into subprime mortgages and credit cards with usurious interest rates.
When the GOP candidates talk about these essential curbs on the abuses of big banks, it's as though they live in an alternate universe – one where Wall Street never drove the world's economy off a cliff. Cain insists that Dodd-Frank "does little to shield Main Street from the alleged risks of Wall Street," while Perry adds that the law should be replaced by "market-oriented" measures – but only if such controls should prove "necessary." The GOP front-runners are so committed to a Wall Street free-for-all that they even want to gut Sarbanes-Oxley, the accounting reforms passed under George W. Bush to bar corporate America from the kinds of bookkeeping fraud pioneered by Tyco, WorldCom and Enron."
Read more: The GOP's Crackpot Agenda Tim Dickenson : Rolling Stone
Read more: The GOP Doesn't Care About U.S. Consumers Roland Martin : CNN
