CEI Today: Senate vote on bank guarantees, copyright reform, transatlantic free trade, and more

SENATE VOTE ON BANK GUARANTEES - JOHN BERLAU

CEI.org: Coalition Tags TAG Bailout as Regressive and Economically Disastrous

As the Senate prepares today to vote on extending unlimited deposit insurance for non-interest bank accounts, 14 leaders and scholars of conservative and free-market groups signed a letter stating strong opposition to the Transaction Account Guarantee (TAG).

Enacted at the height of the financial crisis, TAG provides unlimited government-guaranteed deposit insurance for non-interest bank and

credit union accounts, over and above the $250,000 limit for all accounts. Yet the Senate today is voting on whether to extend this "temporary program," which benefits only the wealthiest depositors, for another two years.

> View the coalition letter

 > View John Berlau's commentary for Nationalreview.com

> Interview John Berlau

TRANSATLANTIC FREE TRADE - IAIN MURRAY Huffington Post - Transatlantic Free Trade Must Be Done Right A Transatlantic Free Trade area would be a very good idea. And it would be a welcome admission of the fundamental economic truth that free trade benefits all involved. But achieving it is easier said than done. Therefore, policy makers should seek to make a Transatlantic Free Trade Area truly free. A highly regulated trade area would not deliver the benefits promised. Thankfully, there is a way to avoid that lackluster result. > View the full commentary on Huffingtonpost.com > Interview Iain Murray

CARBON TAX - MARLO LEWIS Warren Olney's To the Point: Is the Carbon Tax an Idea Whose Time Has Come? CEI's Marlo Lewis versus Bob Inglis, Elizabeth Kolbert, and Dan Lashof.  "Environmentalists have long championed a carbon tax, imposed not just on gasoline, but on all fossil fuels, from coal used to generate electricity to diesel fuel used to power heavy equipment, as a way to address climate change. Now it’s winning the support of conservative think-tanks and even some oil companies, as a way to address the budget deficit. Is the tax a smart way to avert both global warming and the fiscal cliff? If so, then why isn't the Obama White House proposing it, and why is Congress so reluctant to consider it? Has hurricane Sandy changed any minds?" > Listen to the interview on  kcrw.com > Interview Marlo Lewis

DEMOGRAPHIC CLIFF - BILL FREZZA Real Clear Markets & CNBC: Going Off the Demographic 'Cliff?' If demography is destiny, democracy is toast-at least those democracies where citizens can vote themselves a living at someone else's expense. It doesn't take a mathematical genius to see that governments' addiction to intergenerational income redistribution is not sustainable unless someone keeps supplying babies at an accelerating pace. > View the CNBC interview > View the Real Clear Markets commentary > Interview Bill Frezza

More in the news... Big Labor’s Choice: Improve And Evolve, or Perish Don’t Let CLECs Throw Consumers Under the Internet Bus

CEI is a non-profit, non-partisan public policy group dedicated to the principles of free enterprise and limited government.  For more information about CEI, please visit our website, cei.org, and blogs, Globalwarming.org and OpenMarket.org.  Follow CEI on Twitter! Twitter.com/ceidotorg.

ALG's Daily Grind - Time to break up the banks?

Oct. 19, 2012

Time to break up the banks?

Dallas Fed head Richard Fisher: "[S]ustaining too-big-to-fail-ism and maintaining the cocoon of protection of systemically important financial institutions is counterproductive, expensive and socially questionable."

Cartoon: Lie often and loud

Candy Crowley shows Obama the path to victory.

Why hasn't the Fed's quantitative easing led to high inflation?

In the past five years, the Consumer Price Index (CPI) minus food and energy has only increased by an average annual rate of 0.96 percent, even though the Federal Reserve has expanded its balance sheet by roughly $1.9 trillion since the crisis started at an annual rate of $469.7 billion.

Winners and losers energy policies

President Obama is waging war on fossil fuels, job creation, and efforts to end our economic recession and reduce dependence on Middle Eastern and Russian oil.

Institutionalized Immorality: 11 Worst Atrocities Committed by Banks in 2011

Arresting Customers for Closing Accounts, Illegally Harassing Widows Included In List

LOS ANGELES, CA - January 21, 2012 - The banking industry's bad habit of

illegally harassing widows for their deceased spouse's debt has won the top spot on the

CreditCardAssist.com list of the Worst Things Banks Did to Consumers in 2011. The

popular personal finance site declared an incident this summer where a Florida woman

was called by debt collectors constantly throughout her husband's wake to be the most

despicable banking act of the year -- but it was a close call. The article, which details

the most reprehensible actions of the financial industry in 2011, is intended to serve as

a warning to Americans planning on doing business with corporate banks in 2012.

"Despite new regulations that might lead consumers to believe that big banks are safer

than last year, the fact of the matter is that they're more at risk than ever before," says

CreditCardAssist.com founder Bill Hazelton. "The actions of the banking industry last year

were the worst that we've ever seen."

One Wall Street bank had customers arrested for trying to protest unfair policies by

closing out their accounts. Another caused a pregnant woman to miscarry by hounding

her for weeks and destroying her credit rating -- all over a check that the bank had

already cashed. Two major credit card issuers sued a small restaurant for $1.3 million

using data that they allegedly fabricated. In 2011, immorality became institutionalized in

banks across the country.

Hazelton expects continued upheaval in 2012 as more and more consumers look to

move their accounts from the large, national banking conglomerates to smaller locally-

owned credit unions. "The banking industry needs a wake-up call," he says. "Hopefully

the migration of customers will make it listen."

Bill Hazelton, founder of CreditCardAssist.com, has been advising consumers and

business owners on the perils of the credit industry since 2004. Under his guidance,

CreditCardAssist.com has grown into one of the leading credit card information resources on

the Internet and its on-site reports have been cited by the San Francisco Chronicle, the

New York Post, Yahoo! News and more.

To learn more about CreditCardAssist.com or to schedule an interview with Bill Hazelton,

please email Matt Hoff at Matt@contentfac.com. More information and the entire report

can be viewed here.

CEI Daily - Obamacare Amicus Brief, Protect IP, and Swipe Fees

Obamacare Amicus Brief

Though alarmists have long decried the effects of global warming on Greenland, the Washington Post now reports the island may actually be profiting from warmer weather.

Senior Counsel Hans Bader responds.

"The brief explains how the health care law violates the 'clear statement' rule in the Supreme Court’s Pennhurst decision by imposing vague, indefinite, open-ended additional burdens on states, including massive, unpredictable costs in the billions of dollars. Federal officials have issued over a thousand waivers of burdensome rules imposed by Obamacare, mostly to unions or other entities with political connections.  Meanwhile, HHS officials have vastly expanded the reach of other burdensome provisions of the law. For example, they have largely nullified the law’s grandfather clause, which was put into the law to keep Obama’s broken promise to let you keep your existing health insurance if you like it. They also issued a rule rewarding end-of-life counseling, even though such a provision was removed from the bill prior to passage after the so-called 'death panels' controversy."

 

 

Protect IP

Last week, a handful of senators introduced the Protect IP Act, a bill intended to combat copyright-infringing websites.

Associate Director of Technology Studies Ryan Radia compares Protect IP to last year's Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act (COICA). 

"As several dozen law professors warned last year, COICA lacked procedural safeguards, was overly broad in its scope, and risked hindering free expression by triggering “false positives” rendering lawful websites inaccessible. Compared to COICA, PROTECT IP represents a more balanced approach to fighting online copyright and trademark infringement while recognizing fundamental civil liberties."

Swipe Fees

In his recent Huffington Post column, Dean Baker took the side of "big retailers" against "big banks" when he defended debit card "swipe fee" price controls.

Director of the Center for Investors and Entrepreneurs John Berlau explains how Baker got it wrong.

"In making his case, Baker was on the other side of the facts. He completely misstated the findings of the Federal Reserve in writing the rule in question, asserting that the Fed estimated that the price caps would cover costs of banks and credit unions that issue the debit cards, when in fact the Fed said explicitly said it was setting price controls below-cost. Baker was defending the Durbin Amendment from the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, which puts price controls on the interchange fees — or 'swipe fees' as retailer critics call them — that banks and credit unions charge merchants to process debit process debit transactions. Retailers pay this fee on each card purchase and in return they get more sales and the guaranteed payment for all purchase that was lacking in the 'good old days' of bounced checks. But in implementing the Durbin Amendment, the Fed is drastically reducing this fee from an average of 44 cents to no more than 12 cents per transactions. The biggest retailers will get the biggest short-term benefits from these price controls."

CEI Daily - The Volcker Rule, Card Check, and the UAW

Volcker Rule

The Financial Stability Oversight Council yesterday recommended that regulators implement the Volcker Rule, which limits how banks can risk their capital by trading. 

Director of the Center for Investors and Entrepreneurs John Berlau explains why the Volcker rule is costly, unnecessary, and may even add risk to the financial system.

"The Volcker rule is based on the faulty premise that a financial institution making a loan — any loan — is somehow inherently more dangerous than investing or trading. It was that premise that led to the enactment of Glass-Steagall in the Depression that separated “commercial” from investment banking. [...] Due to unnecessary restriction and uncertainty that will still linger, Congress should repeal the misguided Volcker rule and move on to the Dodd-Frank “financial reforms” glaring omission — the behemoths Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which were at the center of the crisis."

Card Check The National Labor Relations Board is suing several states whose constitutions forbid card check. Research Associate Trey Kovacs says the case is an example of Big Labor's overreach. "Unions do not believe employees should have free choice. Unions demand access to employees and that management revoke the right of who they employ and private property rights. They believe it is discrimination if employers choose to let non-profit groups, American Red Cross or Girl Scouts, on to their property and not union officials whose goal is to defame and damage the company. Card check is a process which takes away freedoms of American workers and they have voted against it, now we should let that vote count."

UAW

The United Auto Workers union is going to attack companies that don't facilitate their organizing efforts by labeling those companies "human rights violators."

Policy Analyst Ivan Osorio points out that to unionize transnational companies, the UAW will have to reach out to international bodies and foreign governments.

"[UAW President Bob King] recently acknowledged that the UAW is in trouble. Speaking to an audience of 1,000 union members at a Washington political action conference, he said, 'If we don’t organize these transnationals, I don’t think there’s a long term future for the UAW — I really don’t.' With those kind of stakes, it would be surprising for the UAW not to take some drastic action. The upshot of all this is that we could end up seeing the UAW ask international bodies composed of foreign governments — including some undemocratic ones — for help in unionizing American workers. Stranger things have happened."