Tentacles of the Vampire Squid

It was nice when the last remaining New England Republican, Christopher Shays, was defeated.

Unfortunately, he was by former Goldman Sachs executive Jim Himes, who is doing his level best to gut the most effective provisions of Dodd Frank: (See also here)

Connecticut Congressman Jim Himes said a provision in the Wall Street reform legislation aimed at limiting taxpayer exposure to risky elements of financial products sold by banks goes too far and must be changed.

Himes, a Greenwich resident and member of the U.S. House Financial Services Committee, joined with Republicans from North Carolina and Illinois and a fellow Democrat from New York to introduce the Swaps Regulatory Improvement Act this week that would amend the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act. A similar bill has been brought forward in the Senate. An attempt to amend the provision last year failed.

………

As part of the Dodd-Frank Act, banks with access to the Federal Reserve's overnight lending program and insured by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. would be required to set up independent subsidiaries in order to continue selling the financial instruments, called swaps.

Underfunded swap positions among big banks and other financial institutions were a major reason for the 2008 financial disaster. Swap trades were not made on any exchanges and many of them were based on mortgages. Fearing bank failures of staggering proportions, Congress bailed out the largest institutions.

So, he's trying to put tax payers on the hook for the gambles at the big casino yet again.

So, what does this mean? It means that the Democratic leadership will make him head of the DCCC finance committee for the 2014 elections:

Rep. Jim Himes of Connecticut will be the new national finance chairman for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee in the 2014 cycle, according to two well-placed Democratic sources on Capitol Hill.

Officials announced the new position for Himes, a three-term Democrat from Connecticut, at a morning meeting for members.

Jeebus.  The Vampire Squid owns us all.

Simon Johnson was right when he said that the first step in recovery from the implosion of your finance system is to break grip on power of the elites who  f%$#ed us like a drunk sorority pledge.  (I'm paraphrasing)