Consumer Protection
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by Sewell Chan
The government inquiry into the causes of the 2008 financial crisis was the focus of intense partisan bickering Wednesday at a House hearing.
Republicans called the final 545-page report a political exercise whose findings were mostly preordained, while Democrats defended its main conclusion: that Wall Street risk-taking and regulatory negligence combined to produce an avoidable disaster.
Seeking to assuage corporate executives, top U.S. regulators on Tuesday insisted that expected rules on holding collateral, or margin, will focus on financial institutions, rather than commercial companies worried about new costs that could limit their hedging activities.
"Proposed rules on margin requirements should focus only on transactions between financial entities rather than those transactions that involve non-financial end-users," said Commodity Futures Trading Commission Chairman Gary Gensler at a Capitol Hill hearing on the $600 trillion derivatives market.
Congresswoman Maxine Waters (D-Calif.), a senior member of the Committee, delivered the following remarks.
"Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Congresswoman Maxine Waters (D-Calif.), Ranking Member of the Financial Services Subcommittee on Capital Markets and Government Sponsored Enterprises, led her Democratic colleagues on the full Committee in defense of funding for the Securities and Exchange Commission. She delivered the following remarks:
"Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Congresswoman Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) delivered the following opening remarks:
"Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for joining me for this panel on 'Surviving the Recession and Accelerating the Recovery.'"
Congresswoman Maxine Waters (D-Calif.), Ranking Member of the Financial Services Capital Markets Subcommittee, delivered the following remarks at a press conference today on funding for the SEC, which under the Republican budget plan would revert to FY 2008 levels. Congresswoman Waters was joined by Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), the Financial Services Committee's Ranking Member, and Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.), the Ranking Member of the Financial Services Financial Institutions Subcommittee:
By Peter Schroeder
As the Treasury Department prepares to sell off up to $75 billion of shares in the American International Group (AIG) a group of eight Congressional Black Caucus members want to ensure that women and minorities are included in the dealmaking.
In a letter sent Wednesday to Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, the group, led by Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.), urged government officials to ensure these groups are "fairly and fully included at all stages of this process.