Scoping - 6.11.09

Satyam shares rise after profit - Legitimate profits? Skeptical....[BBC]

Bernanke e-mail claim in Merrill sale saga - "After the Fed initially refused to comply with the committee’s request for documents and e-mails in the matter, the committee took the extraordinary step of issuing a subpoena on Tuesday to obtain material from the Fed that concerned the deal." Extraordinary? God forbid the Fed actually have any transparency. [FT.com]

Regulators Ready New Rules for O.T.C. Derivatives - [DealBook]

California Has 50 Days To Live - [Clusterstock] Sphere: Related Content

Reuters: Regulation Not Really On the Fast Track

This may come as some surprise to some of you but there are plenty of lobbyists banks opponents to the Obama Administration's plan to overhaul the regulatory system that will be rolled out next week.

Reuters:

"Targeting not only banks and markets for change, but also executive pay, hedge funds and so-called "systemic risk" to the economy, the Obama plan has been evolving for six months."

Don't you love how Reuters questions the whole notion of systemic risk? We should have just the chips fall and maybe we'd all be bartering for our groceries. Yeah, that sounds awesome.

"Regulatory reform will center mostly on turf fights and political infighting," said Jaret Seiberg, financial services policy analyst at research firm Concept Capital. "The odds are less than one-in-five that a massive financial reform bill will be enacted."

What the dude is trying to say is that the bureaucracies are going to get into some dick-measuring contests and Obama will get a watered down reform bill. Okay, so normal politics. Moving on...

*BTW, doesn't BO look like he's relishing in Timmy's cologne? Possibly Antidote? Discuss.

Steep climb ahead for U.S. financial reforms [Reuters] Sphere: Related Content

June 17th: Super Regulatory Friends Roll Out

The date is set people! The plan to fix everything once and for all will be given to us, courtesy of the Obama Administration, on June 17th, according to Reuters.

T to the mother f'n G will testify on June 18th in order to stammer through everything in painfully gruesome detail.

Long story/short. The Fed is going to make anything and everything its bitch, since it will be the "systematic risk regulator", Office of Thrift Services will merge with the Office of Comptroller Currency to oversee banks and the FDIC will be the Fed's right hand, having the superpower to unwind the AIG's of the world.

The Fed will still be the puppet master overseeing hedge funds, private equity, derivatives, and broker dealers, since they could all fall under "systematic risk". Me thinks that term is going to come in awful handy...

U.S. to unveil regulatory reform plan June 17: source [Reuters]

Sphere: Related Content

I Likes Me Some Financial Regulatory Oversight

Get ready my friends, change is coming!

The Obama Administration is getting closer to rolling out some changes for the regulatory community and if you like bureaucratic, mind numbing regulation now, just wait until Barney Frank, Chris Dodd, and yes, even you, Maxine Waters, get their way.

Some of the usual suspects might not survive this thing, namely the Office of Thrift Supervision. This group of overachievers was responsible for completely ignoring overseeing AIG.

Chuck Schumer: "The Office of Thrift Supervision has very little political support given its track record".

So, unless that's politician code for, "These guys do a tremendous job of producing red tape. They're not going anywhere", it's good night nurse.

Then there's the small matter of the perverts over at the SEC and the wonks at the CFTC. Again, the general consensus is that these two were asleep at the wheel. Some want to see a merger between the two but lobbyists are saying no dice. Guess who wins that one?

Apparently the back room deal as it stands right now is that the SEC would register all hedge funds and oversee derivatives that relate to public companies while the CFTC would get commodity based derivatives. The Times claims that "many hedge funds already [are registered]" but The Gray Lady doesn't define "many". Some might say...few are registered.

So what does all this mean? It seems that the hedge funds are going to take the brunt of this, after years of worrying about the SEC putting the gun to their heads, looks like it's finally happening. If this means 10-K, 10-Q's, etc. for hedge funds, audit partners are going to par-tay.

Administration Is Near Finance Overhaul Plan [New York Times] Sphere: Related Content