Americans for Financial Reform: http://ourfinancialsecurity.org/
For too long, the rules of Wall Street have been written by financial industry lobbyists and by the bankers themselves. This year, that has to change. Get involved to restore corporate accountability, transparency, fairness and financial security for ordinary Americans. Yes we can! make a difference.
Americans for Financial Reform is a coalition of nearly 200 national, state and local consumer, employee, investor, community and civil rights organizations that have come together to spearhead a campaign in the public’s interest for real reforming the nation’s investment, insurance, banking and financial systems. This is a unique organization that can accommodate the aspirations of ordinary Americans to resore trust, fairness & faith in our fincial system by getting involved at the grassroots level. More, the objectives of this consortium of organizations aligns brilliantly with many of the provisions in the Obama Administration’s ‘New Financial Foundations‘ financial reform package submitted to Congress last week. Among their “issue areas” are:
The most important step in addressing systemic risk is to ensure the safety and soundness, fairness, transparency, and accountability of financial markets, participants, and products. If agencies perform those functions properly, then systemic risk will be far less of a problem.
Financial oversight has failed to keep up with the realities of the marketplace, characterized by globalization, innovation, and the convergence of lending and investing activities. This has allowed institutions to structure complex transactions and take on risky exposures without fulfilling the regulatory requirements Congress deemed necessary to prevent a systemic financial crisis after the Great Depression.
“Shadow market” institutions and products must be subject to comprehensive oversight. We need to return to the broad, flexible jurisdiction originally provided in federal securities regulation, which allowed regulators to follow activities in the financial markets. This means ensuring that all institutions that are active in the financial markets provide regular information to regulators and the public about their activities and their counterparty relationships, requiring derivatives to be traded on regulated exchanges that are transparent and impose meaningful margin requirements, and requiring money managers to provide comprehensive disclosures and to act as fiduciaries for their investors.
We need to stem the current foreclosure crisis and ensure that there is quality lending for homeownership, businesses, and economic development in all of our nations communities.
The federal government needs a much more robust program of mortgage relief. The goal of public policy should be to enable the maximum number of homeowners with distressed mortgages to keep their homes. Any other approach—including current policy—will permit the foreclosure crisis to drag down the value of other homes and prolong the general economic crisis through the ripple effects of millions of home foreclosures.
The Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) has been a crucial tool for building wealth and strengthening neighborhoods. It should be strengthened and expanded to non-bank financial institutions. Financial institutions must respond to the full range of needs in low- and moderate-income communities, financing affordable rental housing, homeownership, and small businesses. The CRA Modernization Act of 2009, HR 1479, would apply CRA requirements to all affiliates and subsidiaries of banks, independent mortgage companies, mainstream credit unions, insurance companies, and securities firms. It would strengthen law enforcement, make an explicit goal of eliminating racial disparities, and provide increased opportunities for public comment and engagement.
