Congratulations to my Senators Klobuchar and Franken for standing with Dorgan, standing up to Wall Street and standing by Main Street and "My Home" Avenue.
I encourage each of you to look at which side your Senator chose on this critical question of whether we are going to have real financial regulatory reform - and then to act and speak accordingly.
As to the those that voted against the Dorgan proposal, good luck sleeping at night or looking at yourself in the mirror, because all your fancy words about "this will never happen again" and "we'll get to the bottom of this and fix what went wrong" and "we're going to get tough on Wall Street" are just that and only that, fancy words.
Fancy words spoken by a status-quo politician in a self-serving act of political theatre followed by a more meaningful and revealing act of obeisance to the big corporate investment bankers that will undoubtedly reward you in the months and years to come.
You are the incumbents about which so many are rightfully outraged.
When push came to shove, you walked across the yard to join the Wall Street Bankers, the already rich and powerful, to abandon the rest of us, not to some hypothetical risk of unintended consequences but to a known and quantifiable risk of having to repeat our journey into financial hell that has nearly obliterated our personal savings, cut the value of our houses by 1/3 or more, put millions of us out of work, added crushing additional burden to our national deficit and debt and threatened (still threatens?) to throw the entire world economy into a violent economic depression and potentially world shaking political unheaval.
And to Senator Byron Dorgan with whom many years ago I had the pleasure of becoming acquainted (and to those that joined you in this fight), thank you for reminding me that people of intelligence, honor and courage still occupy some of the seats in that musty chamber.
Thank you for reminding me that words without action are meaningless.
Thank you for reminding me that we still can elect Senators, even from what most consider Red States, that will stand and fight for the people of this country.
Too few. Too few.
But thank you for reminding us that in this desperate struggle for our lives and our livelihoods, our homes and futures we are not alone.
My apologies to fellow kossaks but I have already tarried to long at the fair and cannot tend to this discussion as I'd like. Please feel free to talk amongst yourselves and either thank or spank (figuratively of course) your Senators.
For a longer version of this tale of woe, including Dorgan's and Dodd's respective speeches supporting and opposing Dorgan's proposal go here:
UPDATE required because Library of Congress Thomas search links expire.
Dorgan's Amendment SA 4114 (He refers to it as #4109) to the RESTORING AMERICAN FINANCIAL STABILITY ACT OF 2010 (Senate - May 18, 2010)
- Go to the following link in a different tab or window (so you can follow the rest of the instructions):
http://senate.gov/...
- Select the following boldfaced link on that page: Amendment Number: S.Amdt. 4114 to S.Amdt. 4072 to S.Amdt. 3739 to S. 3217
- For the related speeches, starting from the page you get in Step 2 above select the two numberd links on that page I have highlighted:
STATUS:
5/18/2010:
Amendment SA 4114 proposed by Senator Dorgan to Amendment SA 4072. (consideration: CR S3884, S3894)
At S3894 (includes pages back to S3864) find and select the following pages:
S3877,S3878,S3879
S 3884
S3890, S3891, S3892, S3893, S3894
Or if that seems too complicated, you can just select the following pdf pages:
S3877: http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/... (you can page forward from here if you like)
S3878: http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/...
S3879: http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/...
S 3884: http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/...
S3890: http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/... (3rd column - Dorgan begins)
S3891: http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/... (Dorgan Cont.)
S3892: http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/... (Dorgan then Dodd)
S3893: http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/... (Dodd cont. then Dorgan responds)
S3894: http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/... (Dorgan; Dodd response; Vote)
- For the text of the amendment starting from the page you get in Step 2 above select:
TEXT OF AMENDMENT AS SUBMITTED: CR S3944-3946
and scroll down (goes back to S3912) and select in turn:
Page: S3944
Page: S3945
Page: S3946
Or the following pdf pages:
S3944: http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/...
S3945: http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/...
S3946: http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/...
More general information is available here:
Credit Default Swaps
http://topics.nytimes.com/...
For some perspective:
Amounts outstanding of over-the-counter (OTC) derivatives
By risk category and instrument
http://www.bis.org/...
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