New York Dem Insurgency To Protect Wall Street Fizzles

The New York House Democratic uprising on behalf of Wall Street is fizzling. The effort began last week, when Rep. Gary Ackerman of Queens warned his House colleagues during a caucus meeting that if Blanche Lincoln's derivatives language isn't significantly scaled back, the 26-strong New York delegation would have a difficult time supporting final passage.

Lincoln's derivatives language requires banks to spin off their swaps operations and separately capitalize them, in the hope that if they fail they won't bring down the taxpayer-backed bank itself. The New Yorkers worry that could drive the swaps business off of Wall Street, reducing bank profits and impacting the state's tax revenues.

"Those of us in New York represent not only Main Street, but Wall Street, as well, and understand very much that Main Street is affected by Wall Street," Ackerman told HuffPost last week as he began circulating a letter among the New York delegation putting the Dems' "deep concern" on record. (Read the letter here.) <snip>

<snip> The New Yorkers were the target of an online campaign to dissuade them from joining Ackerman. The Progressive Change Campaign Committee rallied 4,000 of its New York members to contact their members of Congress and ran online ads hitting Ackerman and others in the state. "Most New Yorkers do not work on Wall Street -- especially Gary Ackerman's constituents in Queens. One by one, members of the New York delegation are realizing that the real way to protect their constituents is to stop Wall Street banks from gambling away people's bank deposits and causing more bailouts," said Aaron Swartz, a PCCC co-founder. "Gary Ackerman's bluff has been called, and it's time for Democrats in Congress to rally around the strongest Wall Street reform possible."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/06/23/new-york-dem-insurgency-t_n_622530.html?ir=Politics

Sometimes the good guys win. :)

Derivatives need to be outlawed, not regulated.

I don't expect the financial reform bill to do nearly enough to protect us but I was glad to see this crass sellout Ackerman was orchestrating defeated.

They're making damn sure this will all happen again and they want my applause? Good luck.

:)

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