The Business Perspective on Dodd-Frank

Not a real shocker here it's a disaster that will create all sorts of compliance nightmares, and reduce US competitiveness vs overseas banking hubs like London and Zurich.  Worst of all it totally ignores Freddie and Fannie.

"Today, Fannie and Freddie are larger and weaker than ever, accounting for some 95% of all newly-written mortgages, and representing a $5 trillion asset base that, investors understand, is now fully if implicitly guaranteed by US taxpayers. US housing is still in such a fragile state that Congress dared not expose Fannie and Freddie to market forces or to force them to restructure. From September 2008 until today, they’ve sucked down about $145 billion in bailout funds, and each continues to lose about $10 billion per quarter. This is the ongoing cost to taxpayers of artificially supporting US housing. Nothing has changed, and the abusive and hyper-risky behaviors of the bubble years continue to this day, albeit in attenuated form."

Wonderful, Washington imposes massive regulation that it admits no one understands, grabs even more power and ignore key culprits in the crisis.  Then it has the audacity to call it Reform!

Unions face opposition from long time allies

Even their most ardent supports are coming to realize the present state of public sector unions is not sustainable.

For decades, many state and city politicians, especially Democratic ones, helped assure their re-election by cozying up to public-sector unions and benefiting from their campaign dollars and precinct walkers. Prior to their current jobs

This bitter irony is born out of necessity local & state governments have ran out of money.

"I'm getting branded as an antilabor person by the public employee unions, which amazes me because I've spent my lifetime doing right by working men and women," said Mr. Sweeney, 

Fortunately for Mr. Sweeney the visceral reaction of the unions will be perceived as an asset by the majority of voters in a general election. The trick for these new blue dog Democrates is surviving their primaries. The unions & net roots will ruthlessly be targeting any heretics.

At the local level they can't print money and they have reached the limits of borrowing. So the question becomes what is the union strategy if everyone can see the writings on the wall?  I think the plan is to delay the day of reckoning while pushing for a bail out from the feds, hoping to leverage those campaign contributions in 08.