House Votes to Tighten Regulation of Financial System – NYTimes.com thankfully, the CFPA survives, but they voted down cramdown on mortgages in bankruptcy, and voted for the contemptible Melissa Bean’s contemptible preemption language, which allows the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, to strike down state consumer protections.

USA Today, of all people was right hen it said that, “The Comptroller of the Currency, for example, behaved much like a banking lobby embedded in the Treasury Department,” so this is simply repulsive.

Bullet points:

• The Creates the Consumer Financial Protection Agency (CFPA) is created.
• A Financial Stability Council is created.
• Dissolution Authority, though the way that it is structured, it may be considered a “perpetual TARP”.
• Shareholders get a non-binding “say on pay”, which means nothing.
• Increases the SEC’s powers.
• Regulation of Derivatives, but it’s full of loopholes.
• Mortgage Reform.
• Reform of Credit Rating Agencies:a biggie if the reforms mean anything, but they seem to be weak tea.
• Registration of hedge funds, though it seems weak.
• Creates an Office of Insurance, which is a big thing, since insurers are likely the to be in the meltdown shortly.

In the least surprising news of the day, it appears that no Republican voted for the bill.

A long list of the amendments is here.

It’s better than nothing, but not by much, and you know that the bad parts will be kept, and the good parts thrown overboard, in conference committee.