Farewell. The Flying Pig Has Left The Building.

Steve Hynd, August 16, 2012

After four years on the Typepad site, eight years total blogging, Newshoggers is closing it's doors today. We've been coasting the last year or so, with many of us moving on to bigger projects (Hey, Eric!) or simply running out of blogging enthusiasm, and it's time to give the old flying pig a rest.

We've done okay over those eight years, although never being quite PC enough to gain wider acceptance from the partisan "party right or wrong" crowds. We like to think we moved political conversations a little, on the ever-present wish to rush to war with Iran, on the need for a real Left that isn't licking corporatist Dem boots every cycle, on America's foreign misadventures in Afghanistan and Iraq. We like to think we made a small difference while writing under that flying pig banner. We did pretty good for a bunch with no ties to big-party apparatuses or think tanks.

Those eight years of blogging will still exist. Because we're ending this typepad account, we've been archiving the typepad blog here. And the original blogger archive is still here. There will still be new content from the old 'hoggers crew too. Ron writes for The Moderate Voice, I post at The Agonist and Eric Martin's lucid foreign policy thoughts can be read at Democracy Arsenal.

I'd like to thank all our regular commenters, readers and the other bloggers who regularly linked to our posts over the years to agree or disagree. You all made writing for 'hoggers an amazingly fun and stimulating experience.

Thank you very much.

Note: This is an archive copy of Newshoggers. Most of the pictures are gone but the words are all here. There may be some occasional new content, John may do some posts and Ron will cross post some of his contributions to The Moderate Voice so check back.


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Wednesday, November 11, 2009

Regulatory Reform Bills In Progress

By John Ballard



I use the term in progress advisedly. In Washington terms like "progress" or "in progress" don't mean the same as when used in everyday conversation.



Pat Garofalo at the The Wonk Room compares the two versions of financial services regulatory reform being crafted in the House and Senate. The Senate Banking Committee, Chaired by Chris Dodd, and the House's Financial Services Committee, headed by Congressman Barney Frank, are lined up side by side comparing five areas of interest.




  • Establishing a federal level Consumer Financial Protection Agency

  • Consolidation of the hodge-podge of regulatory offices now in place 

  • "Resolution Authority" (my favorite) which is Washington-speak for euthanizing big institutions

  • "Systemic Risk" assessment advisory groups (Washington-speak for "death panels")

  • "Breaking up risky firms" (self-explanatory)


It's hard to tell whether this drama is real or kabuki but in the aftermath of last year's meltdown and evidence of ongoing bubbles, it's a little of each. If nothing else, the banking industry's naked willingness to treat even their best customers with the same indifference as a wild animal eating newborns, there is ample reason for federal oversight. 



I heard about what is being tagged "Resolution Authority"  several months back.
I love the language, which is the same for both House and Senate summaries.



...Institutions must draw up a �living will,� to be used in the event they must be unwound.



This item, of course, is a political cop out. It's a smooth tactic calculated to make something happen without anyone's taking the blame.

I can predict with certainty that any such living will will insure comfort and security for the very people making it necessary at the expense of subordinates with no policy input authority.
It doesn't take much imagination to construct a situation where principals could deliberately trigger such an outcome.
Rewards like that don't even require a conspiracy.

I find it encouraging that both houses of Congress are at least going through the motions of doing something. Let's hope the results will be forthcoming in time to head of the next global crisis.Both bills are in agreement about that last item.





Gives federal regulators the authority to break up systemically risky firms on a case-by-case basis.

All we need now is gonads for the go-ahead.



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