Expect light posting over the next few weeks.

Thanks so much for reading!

So reports the New York Times:

Having passed the Dodd-Frank Act earlier this summer, the bill that aspires to reorder our financial universe in the wake of the most serious economic crisis in generations, Congress has moved on to other matters. Regulators are left to write the rules that will make financial reform a reality — or not — and are beginning that laborious process. ..

The question is this: Will regulators give Wall Street’s big dealers what they want in a second bite of the apple?

There is no doubt that regulating the freewheeling derivatives market is important work. If done right, heightened scrutiny could well eliminate the potential for another disastrous bank run like the one that threatened world markets in September 2008 when the American International Group imploded. The insurer had written insurance on mortgage securities— a derivative known as a credit default swap — and almost collapsed after, among other things, onerous collateral calls from its trading partners drained its cash...

“It is again going back to the battlefield, and this is a much more complicated battlefield...”

“There is going to be so much pressure from the biggest financial institutions not to have limits,” said Heather Slavkin, senior policy adviser of the A.F.L.-C.I.O.’s Office of Investment and a participant in the Aug. 20 meeting. “Regulators are going to be very much focused on what types of swaps get cleared, so the governance and ownership aspects that are just as important may not get the attention they deserve.”

It's not over yet. We must continue to hold the regulators accountable and ensure that they follow both the letter and the spirit of the Wall Street Reform law.

People power keeps Edda Lopez in her home and causes Bank of America to stand down. Watch the inspiring story:

...with strong endorsement of Elizabeth Warren:

President Obama should nominate Elizabeth Warren to head the new Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection, and not only because of her credentials . . .

The banks don’t oppose Ms. Warren because she doesn’t get it. They oppose her because she does.

Read the full article.

The Boston Globe chimes in with a powerful editorial.

ONE OBVIOUS reason President Obama should pick Elizabeth Warren to lead the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau is that the new agency was her idea to begin with. Created as a unit of the Federal Reserve by the recent financial-reform bill, the agency will have the ability to set rules for credit cards, loans, and other financial “products’’ that banks and similar institutions offer to consumers. It needs a leader who has a passion for protecting consumer interests — and who recognizes that doing so contributes to the health of the financial system. Warren is easily the best candidate for the position.

Warren, a Harvard Law School professor, has conducted extensive research on bankruptcy, predatory lending, and other consumer-finance issues. Throughout her tenure as head of a panel appointed by Congress to provide oversight of the federal bailout funds, Warren has sought to connect the machinations of the financial system with the struggles of average families. She raised early alarms about subprime mortgages, and her work casts light on how a deliberate obscurity in the terms of credit cards and mortgages contributed to an unsustainable growth of consumer debt.

Her activism over the years has contributed to fears on Wall Street that the consumer-protection agency she inspired will create a vast new regulatory burden. And to be sure, the regulatory system shouldn’t discourage financial innovations that promote greater efficiency and transparency. Yet the subprime loans and sneaky fees that proliferated before the 2008 economic meltdown had precisely the opposite effect. If the fate of the modern financial firm depends on its ability to enmesh consumers in transactions that ill serve their interests, those consumers are in danger — but so is Wall Street and the economy as a whole.

The choice is clear. Wall Street opposes Warren. Do you stand with them?