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The final act of Brian Brooks, appearing head of the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, as he headed to the exits was to finalize a rushed regulation prohibiting banks from blacklisting total industries. Why was this necessary to Brooks and the GOP? Because many banks have stopped lending to gun producers, the fossil gas {industry} (and notably drillers), and different icky and controversial forms of enterprise that mirror poorly on anybody doing enterprise with them.
The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency is a regulatory company supposed to supply oversight of the banking {industry}, however it actually doesn’t perform as such. It’s a typical instance of an {industry} regulating itself, with Wall Street insiders working the joint to the good thing about its “clients.” Yes, purchasers.
It’s a outstanding flip for the OCC, which watches over JPMorgan Chase & Co., Citigroup Inc., Wells Fargo & Co. and different big monetary firms. The regulator has historically been seen as essentially the most industry-friendly of the federal government’s watchdogs, with Brooks’s predecessor Joseph Otting typically referring to banks because the OCC’s “clients.”
Banks are livid, in fact. How dare a regulator regulate them! But this isn’t in regards to the banks.
This is about it being the whole job of an company to grease the skids for its “client” banks, and overriding their capitalistic free will by ramming by means of a regulation that makes a mockery of Republican orthodoxy.
It’s actually ironic to observe the “NO REGULATIONS” crowd all of the sudden impose one when their associates within the power and gun industries are affected.
It’s actually ironic to observe the identical crowd who wish to refuse service to homosexual wedding ceremony {couples} all of the sudden get the vapors when it’s the mass-murdering gun {industry} within the crosshairs. Fox News had a breathless report again in July of final 12 months on the rising activism convincing banks to drop their gun purchasers.
“Financial activism by banks is by far one of the largest emerging threats against Second Amendment rights,” Philip Watson, founding father of Washington Public Relations and a Second Amendment advocate, instructed Fox News. “The federal government allows the financial industry to receive vast amounts of federal funds; however, those exact same funds free up their balance sheets enough to discriminate and play politics.”
Again, refusing to promote a cake to a homosexual couple is okay. Refusing to serve murdering gun {industry} and it’s “playing politics.” And certainly, that’s the speaking level Republicans have used to justify this new regulation. “Business lending decisions should be based on creditworthiness, rather than politics or political pressure,” stated Republican Senate Banking Committee Chairman Mike Crapo. “I applaud Acting Comptroller Brooks.”
Yet “political pressure and politics” are very a lot official elements in any enterprise’ selections. It’s referred to as “public relations,” and customers are allowed to make their very own commerce selections primarily based on how their values align with the folks they do enterprise with. It’s why gun producers promote on right-wing on-line boards and different politically pleasant boards. It’s why companies centered on sustainability promote the place liberals congregate. It’s why even trillion-dollar firms like Apple and Microsoft make a giant deal about their very own sustainability efforts.
People need to be ok with the businesses they do enterprise with. And fairly frankly, exterior of the MAGA/Q world, folks aren’t a lot thrilled about assault weapon producers or environment-destroying frackers. Republicans don’t like that, pushing by means of this gross interference into the free market.
Calling Republicans “hypocrites” is rote, boring, and ineffective. They don’t give a shit. But it’s yet one more reminder that they lack even the barest semblance of a cohesive ideology.
Like all rules handed inside the final six months (or so), the brand new Congress and administration has an opportunity to veto them with a easy majority vote.
The Trump administration has rushed by means of a flood of last-minute rules that the brand new Democratic majorities totally intend to assessment. This could also be one among them.
Beyond that, the banks will sue as the method in passing this regulation was rushed and sure flawed (bear in mind which administration pushed it by means of, essentially the most incompetent of all time). Interesting query: In that lawsuit, who would defend the regulation? The Biden administration actually could have little curiosity in doing so.
So in the long run, it’ll seemingly be all for naught—a last-minute reward to the gun and extraction industries that can find yourself being nothing greater than a merciless mirage, as actual and substantive because the GOP’s supposed fealty to “free market principles.”
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