Occupy the SEC (OSEC) has filed a lawsuit in the Eastern District of New York against six federal agencies, over those agencies’ delay in promulgating a Final Rulemaking in connection with the “Volcker Rule” (Section 619 of the Dodd-Frank Act of 2010).
Congress passed the Volcker Rule in July 2010 in order to re-orient deposit-taking banks towards safe, traditional activities (like offering checking accounts and loans to individuals and businesses), and away from the speculative “proprietary” trading that has imperiled deposited funds as well as the global economy at large in recent years. Simply put, the Volcker Rule seeks to limit the ability of banks to gamble with the average person’s checking account, or with public money offered by the Federal Reserve.
Almost three years since the passage of the Dodd-Frank Act, these agencies have yet to finalize regulations implementing the Volcker Rule. Section 619(b)(2)(A) of the Dodd-Frank Act set a mandatory deadline for the finalization of the Volcker regulations. That deadline passed over a year. Despite this fact, the federal agencies charged with finalizing the Rule have yet to do so. In fact, senior officials at the agencies have indicated that they do not intend to finalize the Volcker Rule anytime soon.
The longer the agencies delay in finalizing the Rule, the longer that banks can continue to gamble with depositors’ money and virtually interest-free loans from the Federal Reserve’s discount window. The financial crisis of 2008 has taught us that the global economy can no longer tolerate such unrestrained speculative activity. Consequently, OSEC has filed a lawsuit against the agencies, seeking declaratory, injunctive and mandamus relief in the form of a court order compelling them to finalize the Volcker Rule within a timeframe specified by the court…
And, here’s Yves Smith providing some context (and, for the record, if you take a glance at the bottom right of the OSEC website’s homepage, linked right
HERE, you’ll see that Naked Capitalism has the distinction of being at the top of the list of OSEC’s “recommended blogs”) for the story…
Occupy the SEC, Frustrated With Regulatory Defiance of Volcker Rule Implementation Requirements, Sues Fed, SEC, CFTC, FDIC and Treasury
Yves Smith
Naked Capitalism
Thursday, February 28th, 2013 12:47AM
Occupy the SEC has filed suit in the Eastern District of New York over the failure of the relevant financial regulators to issue a Final Rulemaking as stipulated in Dodd Frank…
As Ms. Smith points to the language in the claim (which is linked above, and also available immediately below), “…you’ll see that the various regulators were given specific dates as to when to complete the rulemaking.
Not only are they out of compliance, they appear to have no intent of finalizing the Volcker Rule.” (
Bold type is diarist’s emphasis.]
And, here’s a link to Yves’ repost of the Scribd file.
Using the words, “quixotic” and “agitprop,” to describe how some pessimists will dismiss OSEC’s admirable efforts, she reminds us that this “misses the point.”
She then points to “…effective opposition movements in other countries, such as Otpor in Serbia, [where] they used stunts and humor to, as the BBC put it…”
…dispel fear among those who want to show their opposition to the government.
And for long periods of time, while the rest of the opposition was in a state of slumber, Otpor demonstrated that there was a group of people who were prepared to overcome an all-pervasive apathy and demonstrate against the regime. Whatever the methods used, Otpor has always given proof of a seriousness of purpose.
After noting that the challenges here in the U.S. are different than they were in Serbia, more than 12 years ago, Yves closes with words of wisdom…
…While the issue of widespread apathy is the same, one critical difference is that much of the public still fails to understand the degree to which the ruling classes no longer represent their interests. Oh, they may resent the banks, and they may also hate Congress, but most people deeply need to believe they live in a system that is fair and where business and political leaders (some if not all) still deserve respect and admiration. So efforts like this suit, which in a few short pages sets forth regulators have simply refused to do their job, whether out of intellectual laziness or due to their indulgence of bank stymieing tactics, puts another chink in the official defenses of cronyism.
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And, on that note, here are a couple of things readers may do, immediately, to support OSEC’s efforts to put a raging fire under our government’s deeply captured, regulatory asses…
Sign-up for Occupy the SEC’s mailing list RIGHT HERE.
Occupy the SEC is an autonomous group. (These days, OSEC and OWS describe each other as "allies.") To learn more regarding how you may assist them in their efforts, simply contact them via THIS LINK.
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DISCLAIMER: The commentary in this post, unless indicated/attributed to others, solely represents the views of the author. The author of this blog post does not speak for nor otherwise represent Occupy Wall Street (OWS) or Occupy the SEC (OSEC) in any way, shape or form.
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