"...Plenty of Time for More Financial Catastrophes Before 2022
At the time of the reconciliation hearings, the remaining Volcker rule provisions were apparently supposed to take effect after seven years, allegedly to give the swaps-jobbers time to unwind their positions. But after the C-SPAN televised reconciliation proceedings were over, dark forces loyal to Wall Street revisited the conference report and introduced even longer delays in implementing even the meager restraints on credit derivatives. This crime appears to have occurred on June 28-29. On the Bloomberg Business Week website we read a report dated June 29:
Goldman Sachs Group and Citigroup Inc. are among U.S. banks that may have as long as a dozen years to cut stakes in in-house hedge funds and private- equity units under a regulatory revamp agreed to last week. Rules curbing banks’ investments in their own funds would take effect 15 months to two years after a law is passed, according to the bill. Banks would have two years to comply, with the potential for three one-year extensions after that. They could seek another five years for ‘illiquid’ funds such as private equity or real estate, said Lawrence Kaplan, an attorney at Paul, Hastings, Janofsky & Walker LLP in Washington. Giving banks until 2022 to fully implement the so-called Volcker rule is an accommodation for Wall Street in what President Barack Obama called the toughest financial reforms since the 1930s…. Partly as a result of last-minute changes to the wording of the bill, analysts, lawyers and congressional staffers say it’s unclear whether the extension period for illiquid funds would run concurrently with the other transition periods. That could mandate full compliance in less than 12 years.
The London Guardian also detailed the ingenious dilatory tricks for stalling, dodging, and postponing which the Wall Street lobbyists had built into the bill:
Language in the act …allows for a six-month study and a further nine months of rule-making. The measure is supposed to become effective 12 months after the final rule is laid, then banks have two years to conform. But if they need to, they can apply for a three-year extension. On top of that, a five-year moratorium is available for ‘illiquid’ funds that are hard to unwind..."
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