Assuming of course that finreg passes, which while doubtful is still possible if Reid and Frank agree to dump the $18 billion in bank taxes, and substitute general budget cuts instead. It's amazing to witness the power of the bank lobby. This $18 billion is spread out over a decade and is deserved given their role in the crisis, yet there still aren't 60 votes in support.
Ratigan wasn't lying last week:
---
Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Citigroup Inc. are among U.S. banks that may have as long as a dozen years to cut stakes in in-house hedge funds and private- equity units under a regulatory revamp agreed to last week.
Rules curbing banks’ investments in their own funds would take effect 15 months to two years after a law is passed, according to the bill. Banks would have two years to comply, with the potential for three one-year extensions after that. They could seek another five years for “illiquid” funds such as private equity or real estate, said Lawrence Kaplan, an attorney at Paul, Hastings, Janofsky & Walker LLP in Washington.
Giving banks until 2022 to fully implement the so-called Volcker rule is an accommodation for Wall Street in what President Barack Obama called the toughest financial reforms since the 1930s. The Glass-Steagall Act of 1933 forced commercial banks such as what is now JPMorgan Chase & Co. to shed their investment-banking units in less than two years.
“One of the big concerns for the banks was how to unwind these funds,” Kaplan said. “This takes a lot of that argument away by giving them as much as 12 years to do so.”
---