“Hillary Clinton is using a prominent surrogate to attack Bernie Sanders’ emphatic proposals for reforming Wall Street: Gary Gensler, former chair of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.
“Gensler, who is the Clinton campaign’s chief financial officer, has enormous credibility among financial reformers after his aggressive (and lonely) efforts to rein in banks during the early years of the Obama administration.
“As a result, the Clinton campaign has tapped him to fend off Sanders and make the difficult case that Clinton is genuinely interested in cleaning up Wall Street.”
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“Last month, for instance, the CFTC passed new rules that waive the initial collateral requirement on so-called inter-affiliate trades occurring between subsidiaries of the same corporate parent. Goldman Sachs and Citigroup lobbied heavily for the concession, according to federal disclosures. Not only will this save those banks — two of the largest derivatives traders — billions of dollars, but it creates what Better Markets CEO Dennis Kelleher has called a “ticking time bomb,” with uncollateralized exposures making it more difficult to wind down failing firms. Massad has openly called for leniency on other capital rules that would save banks cash.”
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Read the full ‘The Intercept” article by David Dayen here.