Banks Get OK to Use Taxpayer Money for Derivative Speculation

Politicians share many of the same skills as magicians. They both use psychological misdirection by making big gestures to distract and fixate spectators, while quietly performing their tricks.

A good example of this is the House and Senate agreeing to raise the budgets for the Commodities Futures Trading Commission and Securities & Exchange Commission in exchange for quietly repealing the Lincoln Amendment to the Dodd Frank financial regulation law. The action looks like more money for tougher regulation, but eliminating the Lincoln Amendment means American banks are once again free to use taxpayer money to back-stop their speculative derivative trading.

Involving government with financial institutions and derivatives has a very nasty history in the United States. It has been 20 years since Orange County, California filed for bankruptcy after losing $2.7 billion from derivatives; 16 years since Long Term Capital Management threatened America’s largest banks with $1 trillion in default risks; and 6 years since AIG’s $14.5 billion defaulted margin call on $20 trillion in derivatives almost wiped out the U.S. banking system and forced taxpayers to fund an $85 billion bailout.

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