SEC Says New Financial Regulation Law Exempts it From Freedom of Information Act
July 31, 2010 2 Comments
So much for transparency.
Under a little-noticed provision of the recently passed financial-reform legislation, the Securities and Exchange Commission no longer has to comply with virtually all requests for information releases from the public, including those filed under the Freedom of Information Act.
The law, signed last week by President Obama, exempts the SEC from disclosing records or information derived from “surveillance, risk assessments, or other regulatory and oversight activities.” Given that the SEC is a regulatory body, the provision covers almost every action by the agency, lawyers say. Congress and federal agencies can request information, but the public cannot.
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Only for the brave, here is a question on financial regulations.
Currently the financial regulators in the Basel Committee requires the bank to hold 8 percent when lending to unrated small businesses and entrepreneurs but only 1.6 percent when lending to triple A rated clients.
What would have happened if exactly the opposite capital requirements had been imposed? The banks having to hold instead 8 percent in capital when lending to triple-A rated clients and only 1.6 percent when lending to unrated small businesses and entrepreneurs.
It would most surely have created problems, any regulatory discrimination does, but I hold that a crisis as large as the current one would not have happened… since no gigantic financial crisis has ever resulted from excessive lending to those who are perceived as risky, they have always resulted from excessive lending to those who are perceived as not risky.
We could also have had a lot more of jobs, since almost always the next-generation of decent sustainable jobs is to be found among the current small businesses and entrepreneurs.
Our biggest financial systemic risk is without any doubt our financial regulators
No doubt. Actually, the problem is monopolistic capitalism in the first place. Don’t think I’m a commie, though. Monopolistic capitalism is actually a complete and total subversion of a truly free market.