US Senate Rubber-Stamps the Dictatorship of the Big Banks

The US Senate’s passage of the Obama administration’s financial reform bill Thursday was hailed in the media and by official Washington as a landmark effort to curb the power of the big banks. But on Wall Street itself, the news was greeted with a mixture of dismissal and applause.

There is a striking and politically illuminating contrast between the market reaction and the populist phrases mouthed by Democratic politicians in Washington. Harry Reid, the Democrat majority leader in the Senate, boasted, “When this bill becomes law, the joyride on Wall Street will come to a screeching halt.”

President Obama was more restrained, declaring, “Our goal is not to punish the banks but to protect the larger economy and the American people from the kind of upheavals that we’ve seen in the past few years.” But he hailed the passage of the bill as a triumph over intensive lobbying by the major banks (who were among his biggest financial backers in the 2008 presidential campaign).'

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