Phony Populist Trump Signs Order To Deregulate Wall Street, Enable Corp Tax Avoidance

[paralleluniverse]

Enjoy being conned by hypocrite Trump and his Wall Street team.

Some news of the executive order: http://thehill.com/policy/finance/32...rs-at-treasury

Today’s executive orders are the nail in the coffin of Trump’s economic populism

There’s no workers’ party here.

Friday afternoon, Donald Trump traveled to the US Treasury Department where he’s expected to sign a new executive order. The order aims at making life easier for American companies that want to avoid corporate income taxes, relax regulation on some large financial institutions, and make it harder for federal regulators to wind down big banks that fail during a financial crisis.

It’s all part of the Trump administration’s frenetic sprint to put some points on the board ahead of the symbolically significant 100 days mark, though it also certainly seems like a betrayal of the populist themes of his campaign. The good or bad news, depending on how you feel, is that, based on briefings provided in advance by the White House, it does not appear that today’s order actually does anything per se.

Instead, he is essentially issuing a press release announcing his intention to begin the process of potentially undoing the regulations. As with his earlier executive order on climate regulation, this push for bank deregulation is significant as a statement of priorities and certainly could lead to meaningful policy change down the road but will have little immediate impact.

But the broader significance of Trump’s executive sort-of order is as a statement of priorities — a clear flashing light that the notion of a Trump-era GOP as an economically populist “workers’ party” is dead, and business interests rule the roost.
What Trump’s order would do, if it did anything

The executive order targets three separate Obama-era rules relating to financial services:

One is rules from the Treasury Department announced about a year ago that make it harder for American companies to engage in “tax inversions” whereby they legally become foreign companies, while retaining their US headquarters and operations, in order to avoid US corporate income tax.
Another is provisions of the Dodd-Frank bank regulation law that allow the Financial Stability Oversight Council to designate non-bank financial institutions (insurance companies, say) as “systemically significant” and thus subject to unusually tight regulatory scrutiny.
Last, there is a key Dodd-Frank provision known as Orderly Liquidation Authority which gives the FDIC power to keep a complicated failed bank running just long enough to euthanize it piece-by-piece without sparking a massive financial crisis.

Trump’s order does not rescind any of these rules. It merely orders a “review” of them. The federal rule-making process is time-consuming and subject to litigation and judicial review, so Trump can’t simply waive Obama-era rules away. He can, however, implicitly gut regulation through neglect.

In the case of the tax rules, the Trump administration could directly lead to the rule being reversed through executive action if they take the time to go through the steps. In the case of the Dodd-Frank provisions, some modification could be made to the existing procedures through the executive branch alone. But formally eliminating these provisions would probably require new legislation.

As Mike Konczal explained for Vox, Orderly Liquidation Authority could be eliminated through the budget reconciliation process. OLA is structured to cost money in the short-term (because the FDIC needs to keep the dead bank open). Dodd-Frank’s authors in Congress and the Obama Treasury Department argue that the fiscal cost of running down a failed bank in an organized way is minor compared to the real world impact of having the Treasury Secretary chaotically run to Congress demanding emergency bailout money.

But for the purposes of congressional procedure, if not real-world economic policy, Congress can pretend that there will be no bailouts in the event of a crisis and then just pony up the bailout money with no strings attached when crisis strikes.
Economic populist Trump is dead

Paired with the Trump-era surge in immigration arrests, potential deportation of a DREAMer, and broad attacks on judicial review, the financial services executive order is meaningful primarily for clarifying what the exact meaning of the rising clout of “globalists” inside the White House is.

National Economic Council Chair Gary Cohn comes to the White House from a job as the number two official at Goldman Sachs. His version of globalism isn’t the high-minded humane cosmopolitanism that would, say, forestall massive cuts in the foreign aid budget or militate in favor of generous treatment of Central American families seeking refuge from gang violence. It’s the globalism of Goldman Sachs, which wants light-touch regulation of the financial sector, plenty of room for multinational corporations to engage in tax chicanery, and no major trade wars that would threaten US-based financial services companies’ abilities to compete for market share internationally.

A little protectionism here and there for the steel industry is fine as long as things don’t get out of hand.

But there’s no real economic populism here. Trump’s alternative to technocratic liberal bank regulation is bank regulation pursued in the interests of the banking industry. Formally repealing bank rules through legislation will be difficult, and even rolling back regulations through executive action could be hard. But Trump can and will appoint like-minded, business friendly officials to key regulatory posts, and they can simply regulate the industry laxly.

Source: http://www.vox.com/policy-and-politi...-order-finance

[Deleted]

Inb4some"liberal"bullshit... It's just sad. How "people" still defend running a country like a business that needs to/will make money off of it's citizens.

Sent from my ONEPLUS A3003 using Tapatalk

[GreenJesus]

Lul.. who even is this guy? He is Trump in name only. He no longer represents the interests of the people who voted him in with all the stuff that has been going on recently. RIP globalists stole the white house from Trump.

[Macaquerie]

Lul.. who even is this guy? He is Trump in name only. He no longer represents the interests of the people who voted him in with all the stuff that has been going on recently. RIP globalists stole the white house from Trump.

Ah yes, (((Kushner))) and his globalist, Bilderbergian cronies have corrupted the mind of the Glorious Leader, whispering poison into his ear. Who knew that this was going to happen? Trump was going to make America great again!

[Azadina]

The wealth is going to trickle down any day now!

[Muzjhath]

Lul.. who even is this guy? He is Trump in name only. He no longer represents the interests of the people who voted him in with all the stuff that has been going on recently. RIP globalists stole the white house from Trump.

Except this is pretty much what every New Yorker said.
"Trump is a lair who'll lie to get his way and then screw over the people he lied to after they lose their money to get even more".

[Segus1992]

The wealth is going to trickle down any day now!

What an original joke! Good stuff!

[Belize]

What an original joke! Good stuff!

Here's another joke: The Trump administration! Zing!

[paralleluniverse]

Lul.. who even is this guy? He is Trump in name only. He no longer represents the interests of the people who voted him in with all the stuff that has been going on recently. RIP globalists stole the white house from Trump.

I know right! How could I have been conned so hard by the most obvious con man in the world? LULZ.

[Draco-Onis]

How many crashes do we need to have before these morons learn? my guess is these free market magic masters of the universe idiots never will.

[JohnBrown1917]

Trump sure loves his liberal policies.

[Segus1992]

Here's another joke: The Trump administration! Zing!

Almost as unoriginal as the first one, but a little fresher, so gold star to you!

[Priestiality]

Lul.. who even is this guy? He is Trump in name only. He no longer represents the interests of the people who voted him in with all the stuff that has been going on recently. RIP globalists stole the white house from Trump.

I think you mean Trump stole the White House from the people.

[Adam Jensen]

Lul.. who even is this guy? He is Trump in name only. He no longer represents the interests of the people who voted him in with all the stuff that has been going on recently. RIP globalists stole the white house from Trump.

He never did represent the people. Not once. Everyone knew he was a pathological, greedy, narcissistic liar from the beginning. Why so many people fell for it and voted for him is beyond me.

"but her emails!"

[Shadowferal]

Corporate friendly policies have nothing to do liberal progressive policies.

[Kujako]

Lul.. who even is this guy? He is Trump in name only. He no longer represents the interests of the people who voted him in with all the stuff that has been going on recently. RIP globalists stole the white house from Trump.

Sounds like Trump as he has always been... not sure what you mean by Trump in name only. He's doing what he's always done, it's no ones fault but your own if you thought he would change.

[Adam Jensen]

What an original joke! Good stuff!

Seems to be a joke that conservatives fall for, for thirty years straight.

[Segus1992]

Seems to be a joke that conservatives fall for, for thirty years straight.

It's a joke that stupid people fall for, and those stupid people aren't going to see the error of their ways because of the same sarcastic remark being repeated ad nauseum on an internet forum.

[Jastall]

Lul.. who even is this guy? He is Trump in name only. He no longer represents the interests of the people who voted him in with all the stuff that has been going on recently. RIP globalists stole the white house from Trump.

I kept telling you folks that Trump is a pathological liar and skilled con man who's in it only for himself, and would turn around on his professed ''ideals'' even faster than a professional politician as soon as it would suit him.

Well, that's it. You were conned. Trump doesn't give a fuck about your ideals and only exploited a wave of populism to get himself into power. Enjoy the feeling.

[satimy]

During the Obama administration we saw the greatest expansion of wealth to the top 1% ever. We also have trillions of dollars of revenues parked overseas because nobody cares to pay 35%.