Dodd/Frank, one of two major pieces of legislation touted as Obama's first term "legacy," remain grossly incomplete and without implementation, three years after passage.

Dodd/Frank,  named after two retired  Democrat congressmen and officially titled,  “Dodd–Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, “    is a  848-page bill financial bill intended to regulate and limit companies designated as “too big to fail.”   In an article written for The Daily Caller,  we learn that the general belief,  as to the effectiveness of Dodd/Frank,  is simply that the bill is giant bust,  an opinion shared by virtually all parties, Left and Right.  

Indeed,  the bill,  nearly three years after passage,  has not been fully written, and its center piece,  the “Volcher rule,”  continues to be missing.  The law cannot be fully implemented without this rule,  and Volcher,  himself,  is deeply disappointed in the unneeded complexity of the the larger piece of legislation.  

Volcker is on record stating that he would have preferred a simpler set of rules: “I’d write a much simpler bill. I’d love to see a four-page bill that bans proprietary trading and makes the board and chief executive responsible for compliance. And I’d have strong regulators. If the banks didn’t comply with the spirit of the bill, they’d go after them.”  ¹

Since the initial  passage of this unread and poorly written bill,  top priority traders (folks most effective by the bill’s intended restrictions) have moved from the larger banks “regulated” by this monstrosity, to create their own hedge funds and, thus, escape whatever regulations will have been written,  in the final analysis. 

The bill has taken far to long to implement.  As a result,  the “targets” of this bill have,  largely moved out of its sights, and the bill has failed for that reason,  alone. 

Funny,  Dodd/Frank and ObamaCare are the only two pieces of legislation touted as "legacy items" in Obama's first term,  and both of them face the same fate:  initially poorly written, and,  after three years,  still unimplemented and grossly incomplete.  

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1.  Stewart, James (October 21, 2011), "Volcker Rule, Once Simple, Now Boggles", New York Times, retrieved 2011-10-28