Dodd-Frank’s Wall Street Reform Act’s birthday not much to celebrate

By Dian Vujovich

You’d think that five years after America’s worst financial disaster ever the powers that be would have made some significant strides in correcting what caused the calamity. But if you do think like that, you’d be wrong and are probably a person with active working conscious.

Unfortunately, instead of expediently correcting some obvious and not-so-obvious errors within our banking and financial systems it’s lying, cheating, finger-pointing, I-dunno’s, denial and making oodles of money that have trumped correcting any wrong doings. As a result, big banks, for instance, are bigger today than they have been in years, banking and credit card customers are saddled with more fees and trying to get a loan for anything tougher to do than it has been in decades.

That said, it has  been two years since the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act was signed into law. A law with way too many pages -848 of them— and legislation that was supposed to make our financial system stronger, the markets more transparent and provide consumers with a sense of empowerment and feeling of protection.

All of that makes good sense. Then again, so does not diving into the shallow end of the pool.

While I think both Dodd and Frank had their best intentions in mind when crafting this behemoth, because of the law’s ridiculous complexities and Congress’ unwillingness to compromise and work for the betterment of the nation as a whole, so far  the Act hasn’t made Wall Street a better place for most of us.

A read through an overview from the Treasury Department about the Dodd-Frank Act published last month meant to show how far the Act has come, wasn’t impressive. In fact, very little has really been accomplished in the past 24 months.

Some of the factoids in the piece include the following:

• Between the second quarter of 2007 and the first quarter of 2009, 10 trillion dollars in household wealth was lost.

• From Dec. 2007 through February 2010, 8.7 million jobs were lost.

• Between 2007 and 2009 there were 6.3 million more Americans living in poverty.

And those data point figures are old.

Even so, with numbers like that you’d think Congress would be on a fast track to implement the Dodd-Frank Act.  Instead, some consider the Act illegal. Plus,  literally dozens of bills and amendments have been put to place to slow down any serious process aimed at Wall Street Reform.

That doesn’t make me proud.  Nor should it you.

Our capital system ought to be built upon a foundation of integrity and honestly. Not political posturing.

(To see just how far the Dodd-Frank Act has not come, visit: sec.gov/spotlight/dodd-frank.shtml  )