Nearly a Year After Dodd-Frank
Without strong leaders at the top of the nation’s financial regulatory agencies, the Dodd-Frank financial reform doesn’t have a chance. Whether it is protecting consumers against abusive lending, reforming the mortgage market or reining in too-big-to-fail banks, all require tough and experienced regulators.
Too many of these jobs are vacant, or soon will be, or are filled by caretakers. So it was a relief last week when President Obama said he had decided on a well-qualified nominee to be the new chairman for the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and would make other nominations soon. The White House needs to move quickly and be prepared to fight.
Much of the blame for the delays lies with Republican lawmakers who have consistently opposed qualified candidates. In the case of the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, they have vowed to obstruct any nominee unless Democrats first agree to gut the agency’s powers. Until now, the administration hasn’t pushed back.
Mr. Obama’s choice to lead the F.D.I.C., Martin Gruenberg, is a solid one. Mr. Gruenberg has earned widespread respect for his work as vice chairman of the F.D.I.C. since 2005. His confirmation could be eased by the fact that he is well known to senators from his long previous tenure on the staff of the banking committee.
Thomas Curry, reported to be under consideration to lead the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, is also a strong choice. A lawyer, former state bank regulator and current F.D.I.C. board member, he has a firm grasp of federal and state regulation. That is a crucial attribute for running the historically antiregulatory O.C.C. If nominated, Mr. Curry’s confirmation could be smoothed by the fact that he is a registered independent who was chosen for the F.D.I.C. by President George W. Bush.
It remains to be seen whether Republicans will just-say-no to even uncontroversial candidates like Mr. Gruenberg and Mr. Curry. Any potential fight pales compared to the one under way over the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau where, as ever, the Republicans are more interested in protecting bankers than consumers.
As their price for confirming a director, they want to vastly expand the power of bank regulators to veto the bureau’s decisions and put controls on the bureau’s financing that will make it more vulnerable to political pressure. They have also made clear their particular disdain for Elizabeth Warren, the Harvard law professor and prominent reformer who has been working as a presidential adviser to set up the bureau.
The White House has recently floated another possible nominee, Raj Date, a former banker who is now working with Ms. Warren. Mr. Date has an impressive résumé, but not nearly as impressive as Ms. Warren’s.
Why go with a compromise candidate when Republicans have vowed to block any nominee? Mr. Obama and Senate Democrats should back Ms. Warren and expose to American voters just exactly whose interests the Republicans put first.
Mr. Obama has been criticized for not doing battle for another excellent nominee, Peter Diamond, a Nobel Prize laureate in economics who withdrew his name after Republicans vowed to block him from the Federal Reserve Board of Governors. They said his background in labor economics made him unqualified, even though full employment is one of the Fed’s mandates. Mr. Diamond clearly could have served ably, but Republicans were more interested in obstruction. It’s past time for President Obama to take off the gloves.
They Need to Stand Up for Equality
The New York State Senate is just two votes away from approving same-sex marriage. At least four senators — all Republicans — still won’t say where they stand. They need to declare their support. There is no excuse for their silence, except for appeasing a conservative political base that clearly does not represent the interests or the values of this state.
The Assembly has voted for marriage equality repeatedly. Gov. Andrew Cuomo is ready to sign the bill into law. And an army of prominent New Yorkers are urging the Legislature to approve this basic human right.
The list of business leaders supporting same-sex marriage includes: Rochelle Lazarus, chairman of Ogilvie & Mather; Lloyd Blankfein, chief executive of Goldman Sachs; and Richard Parsons, chairman of Citigroup. Also speaking out are several big-time Republican donors: John Mack, chairman of Morgan Stanley; Paul Singer, a hedge fund executive; Jerry Speyer, chairman of Tishman Speyer Properties.
Mayor Michael Bloomberg of New York City has promised to put his cash and clout behind any senator who supports the legislation “no matter where they stand on any other issue.”
Larry King, Julianna Margulies, Michael Strahan, formerly of the New York Giants, Sean Avery of the Rangers and Steve Nash of the Phoenix Suns have made videos in support of marriage equality. Leaders of the A.F.L.-C.I.O.; S.E.I.U. 1199, the health workers’ union; and the Communications Workers of America are also pushing hard.
Senator James Alesi of the Rochester suburbs was the first Republican senator to say he would vote for marriage equality. We applaud him and urge others to join him. Instead, they are either opposed or staying mum, hoping the clock will run out and they won’t have to take a stand. That list of undeclared: Greg Ball of Putnam County, Andrew Lanza of Staten Island, Roy McDonald of Rensselaer County and Stephen Saland of the Poughkeepsie area.
Dean Skelos, the Senate Republican leader who has said that he is opposed to same-sex marriage, has also said members of his caucus should follow their conscience. There is less than a week left in the term. Mr. Skelos must schedule a vote, and New York’s lawmakers need to do what is right.
Reading Turkey’s Vote
Turkey’s voters gave Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party roughly half the popular vote and a solid new parliamentary majority. But the party fell short in Sunday’s vote of the two-thirds majority it needs to push through a new Constitution on its own. That is good news for Turkey’s democracy.
Turkey’s current Constitution, drafted under military rule in the early 1980s, should be replaced by a fully democratic charter. It must reinforce human rights, including free speech, a free press and equal rights for women and ethnic minorities and represent the full range of the country’s increasingly pluralistic society.
Over the last nine years, Justice and Development has unleashed the energies of Turkey’s entrepreneurs, established civilian supremacy over a coup-prone army and pushed through human rights reforms as part of an effort to bolster Turkey’s candidacy for the European Union. Recently, Mr. Erdogan has become more authoritarian and thin-skinned. His party was expected to push for creating a strong new executive presidency designed to let him continue to rule after his term as prime minister runs out. That would concentrate far too much power in a single branch of government.
Mr. Erdogan’s increasingly confrontational foreign policies may play well at the polls, but they have proved costly for the country’s interests. Once-constructive relations with Israel have yielded to tit-for-tat provocations and, if they continue, could threaten Turkey’s substantial trade with Israel. Its cozy games with Iran only encouraged Iran’s nuclear ambitions. Its ambivalent response to the Arab Spring has left the pioneering Muslim democracy looking like an apologist for kleptocrats and thugs.
Ankara must discourage private Turkish groups from initiating a second blockade-running Gaza flotilla and press Turkish companies and banks to better enforce international sanctions against Iran. It must recognize that the drive for democracy sweeping up against its borders represents a historic opportunity for Turkish leadership.
A Clear View of the Troubled Oceans
The scale and toll of industrial fishing is far less familiar than even the scale and toll of industrial farming. Groups like Seafood Watch at the Monterey Bay Aquarium put out sustainable seafood lists for diners and shoppers, good reminders that fisheries are in decline. But even they do not convey how bad things have become.
That is one of the purposes of European Fish Week, which ended on Sunday. The event was organized by Ocean2012, a coalition hoping to change the Common Fisheries Policy of the European Union. Change will not come easily. As the coalition points out, Europe is supporting overfishing with high quotas and direct subsidies for modernizing the European fishing fleet. And since the European fleets fish globally, the effect is global.
A 2003 study by the Fisheries Center at the University of British Columbia shows the plunge in predatory fish over the last century. A map of the Atlantic in 1900, based on that data, is filled with colored splotches showing concentrations of fish. In 2000, the map is nearly empty.
A chart on the Ocean2012 Web site approaches the problem in a different way. It shows that since the 1950s, the Spanish fishing fleet, once mostly confined to the mid-Atlantic and the Mediterranean, has become a global force, fishing in the Pacific and along the edge of Antarctica as well.
So far, the sensible remedies — including lowering quotas, limiting seasons and retiring fleets — have gone nowhere. Choosing a sustainable fish for supper isn’t enough. Both commercial fishermen and the politicians that do their bidding must recognize that global overfishing by many nations now threatens the oceans and the economies that depend on them. And the only way to deal with that threat is with strong international rules to end all unsustainable fishing.
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