Title:
Reform of Financial System Is Obama's Next Goal in
Congress
Description: This is
a VOA Special English Economics Report.
See text below
Text:
President Obama turned his attention to financial
reform after his victory in March on health care.
On April fourteenth he met with congressional
leaders from both parties at the White House.
He said there are some areas on which Democrats and
Republicans can agree. "If theres one lesson that
weve learned," he said,
"it's that [an] unfettered market where people are
taking huge risks and expecting taxpayers to bail
them out when things go sour is simply not
acceptable."
Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner wrote in the
Washington Post that the deep financial crisis is
close to the end. But he said the nation must not
forget the near-collapse of the banking system in
two thousand eight without fixing the causes.
He told the American Society of News Editors in
Washington that no one is arguing against new
financial protections. The debate now,
he said, involves how to design a system that lets
big financial companies fail without harming the
economy.
In December, the House of Representatives passed the
Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. That
bill would create a new consumer financial
protection agency. It would also increase investor
protections and let shareholders vote on the pay of
top company officials.
And it would create a group to identify and regulate
companies that are so big, their failure could
threaten the economy.
Republicans opposed the bill. That was also true in
March when the Senate Banking Committee approved its
own version. That bill would not create an
independent consumer agency, but instead a new
office at the Federal Reserve, the central bank.
Senate Minority Leader
Mitch McConnell of Kentucky said the bill would make
future bailouts
more likely, not less likely.
Both measures in Congress call for
a system to supervise derivatives. These contracts
are used for different purposes, including
investment and protecting against loss. The largely
unregulated market in derivatives is estimated at
six hundred trillion dollars.
Government rescues of banks considered "too big to
fail"
angered the public and helped fuel a conservative
movement.
The Tea Party also opposes the new health care law
and argues for lower taxes and less government.
On April fifteenth they protested to mark Tax Day,
when Americans have to pay any federal taxes they
owe.
And that's the VOA Special English Economics Report.
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Hi. I
personally reviewed this video and found it appropriate for
the news section of English Global Group. This
is a Voice of America video which covers an interesting
topic in Special English. I would appreciate some feedback from both
students and teachers about this video. You can comment in
the window below using any of a number of different services
including Facebook, Yahoo, AOL, and Hotmail.
