Cited: CNN

Everyone knows that the companies, and interests with the most to gain, the most to lose, and with the most to spend, put their money to work in buying influence in Washington. And among the biggest purchasers of our political system are the banks and financial institutions lining Wall St.

Spending by these financial institutions in 2011 topped $150 million, the second year in a row that these firms spent that amount in order to get their point across with the lawmakers that more often than not will be deciding on a host of laws and regulations governing the financial industry.

Top on the list of issues raised, and money thrown at by the finance giants is the Dodd-Frank regulation and all of its many policy changes enacted with the movement to reform Wall Street business practices.

Those with the most to spend among the banks and investment houses were Wells Fargo at $7.8 million, JP Morgan Chase at $7.6 million, Goldman Sachs at $4.4 million, and Morgan Stanley at $2.4 million. As is often the case, these institutions declined comment when contacted about the amount of spending directed by their companies at Washington lawmakers.

One of the topics of most concern to the Wall Street community has to do with capital that they are now required to keep in reserve as a safety net for bad investments, such as the mortgage backed securities that helped to fuel the financial meltdown. Banks have always had reserve requirements but now these have been increased, which means that the banks have to keep more of their powder dry than they would like, their preference being putting more capital to work in making more and more money.

The other topic of concern is the huge and largely misunderstood derivatives market. Efforts by Congress to make these trades and investments less risky and more open to scrutiny have been met by resistance by the financial community so much of their lobbying efforts are directed at getting these regulations changed.

Another big rule change that the bankers are spending millions to try to keep from going into effect is called the Volker Rule, which seeks to limit the type of proprietary trading that banks can engage in. This used to be covered under the Glass-Stiegel Act, which made a clear distinction between a bank and a financial casino. The difference being that a bank is an integral part of the financial fabric of society and therefore to be regulated to ensure that they don’t fail. The casino, well, all bets are off. But if the Wall Street’ers have their way, they’ll get to keep the rules in their favor and when they roll craps, they’ll turn to the taxpayers for relief……again.

My take:

So how come buying off lawmakers isn’t seen for what it is…bribery? Are we saying that the people we send to Congress aren’t smart enough to make laws based on what they know to be the pertinent issues and that if necessary, consultations with those affected by the laws isn’t enough. Hundreds of millions of dollars are necessary to line their pockets before they know how to enact proper rules and regulations?