Jack:

What the group was looking for is Financial Reform as shown in its site: <link> "Showdown In Chicago." As an example:

"In the US today, three banks hold almost 34% of the nation’s deposits, four banks issue 50% of the country’s mortgages and the five largest credit card lenders control 74% of the market. These companies have a stranglehold on our wallets. And as we’ve seen, when they make bad decisions, they can take the whole economy down with them.

New laws should be put in place that minimize the risk of the “too big to fail” problem. No single institution should be in control of such a large part of the market. Instead, we should encourage a vibrant, diverse, stable banking system, made up of thousands of small and medium size banks. Strong competition policies and antitrust laws will encourage financial institutions to invest in productive activity, instead of investing in changing the rules of the game or manipulating the market."

The group was directly protesting how poorly America was treated over the last 9-10 years as a result of the financial industry and W$ partying in a "Roaring Twenties" fashion. The excess and abuse are without measure and are regulated with a thought of industrial self regulation being all that is needed. As we know, it didn't work and they brought the country to its knees.

I am not so sure we need laws to treat the symptoms as much as laws getting to the root causes of the 2008 collapse and the present. W$ and the financial industry is still doing the same unregulated and nontransparent trading in derivatives with leveraging of a similar magnitude as in the past. Inplementing some form of Glass-Steagal and a change to the Bank Holding Act back to pre 1999 years would again create a firewall to slow down a collapse. Giving the CFTC the ability to track derivatives (as Brooksley Born demanded) would be a big step forward. Since the collapse in 2008, not much has changed in this arena and W$ and the Financial Industry are lobbying heavily against any change.

80% of the subprime loans made by private originators (not Fannie and Freddie) and did not fall under the CRA as many would claim. This needs to be brought up to date. Most of these originators (Countrywide, AIG, etc, to name a couple) fell under the Office of Thrift Supervision (OTS) which was very lax in its supervision of members. The American Banking Association is lobbying to stop Obama from transferring this supervision to other jurisdictions such as the FDIC or the Fed. We could do with one department less and this makes sense given the past.

What appears to be a major issue in all of this is the lack of information made available to people when they go to the banks. I never had issue with the banks but then a lot has changed over 8-10 years, your bank is no longer in the community for the most part, and your mortgage is a part of s MBS/CDO with is sold in tranches to many differnt investors all over the world. Your recourse has gone from walking to the neighborhood bank on the corner to following a chain of sales amongst many global buyers and typically done with transfers with no original mortgage document (remember that point).

While everyone is responsible for their own well being, it has become difficult to ascertain the risk and exposure when you are given incomplete information as allowed by law. Those who have the information are in control over those who lack it and that is the quandry we now find ourselves in today. You can either continue down the same path and trust in those who have screwed you once and are geting ready to do it again or try to do something about it.