Comment Text:
Unregulated trading in complex derivatives has been at the center of a succession of financial scandals ranging from Long Term Capital Management and Enron in the 1990s to the disastrous 2008 financial crisis. For the first time, the Dodd-Frank Act promised to bring a set of rules and a degree of transparency to the shadowy world of derivatives. Under this weak proposal, companies could potentially escape oversight by channeling money through regulatory havens just as they escape taxes by channeling money through tax havens. Industry proposals would also allow a company to evade regulation if it could argue that the activities of a subsidiary were “not guaranteed,” creating a field day for lawyers and a huge threat to U.S. taxpayers. This is not acceptable. Please do the right thing for the American people.
