Comment Text:
To Whom It May Concern at the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission:
My name is Carolyn W. Hunter, and during the 2008 financial crisis, a huge chunk of my hard-earned retirement savings in the TSP evaporated. It took years of hard work to restore my savings, and I am still angry about it. To add insult to injury, as a taxpayer I was called on to bail out the very Wall Street banks and big corporations whose greed caused my losses. I do not want to be asked to do that again, and I do not want my retirement accounts to suddenly lose their value because none of the criminals was arrested, prosecuted, and jailed. Instead, they are courted by members of Congress, persuaded to vote against regulatory reforms, and as a result, no meaningful reforms have been enacted.
Effective oversight of the $700 trillion derivatives market is a key to meaningful reform. Because this market is global, risks can be transferred around the world with the touch of a computer key. The proposed guidance you have issued on cross-border application of Dodd-Frank derivatives rules shows that you understand the importance of this issue. However, the proposal contains numerous loopholes which could allow foreign affiliates of Wall Street banks to once again escape regulation. Big U.S. banks and other major U.S. derivatives users are multinational, global corporations with hundreds if not thousands of foreign affiliates. If we do not regulate them everywhere, we cannot regulate them anywhere. Please strengthen this guidance to ensure that the new Dodd-Frank derivatives protections will apply directly to the full global activities of all important participants in the U.S. derivatives markets.
Thank you very much for your consideration of my views. We are counting on you; Congress is failing us.
