On Thursday, a bi-partisan majority of the U.S. House of Representatives passed H.R. 766, the ‘‘Financial Institution Customer Protection Act of 2015." The bill is intended to put a stop to Operation Choke Point- an Obama Administration initiative aimed at driving firearms and ammunition sellers out of business.

Bill Aimed at Ending Operation Choke Point Passes House https://t.co/rWdUoknywm #nra #tcot

— Conservative Sense (@conservasense) February 5, 2016

On Thursday, a bi-partisan majority of the U.S. House of Representatives passed H.R. 766, the ‘‘Financial Institution Customer Protection Act of 2015,” sponsored by Rep. Blaine Luetkemeyer (R-MO). As we reported last year, this bill targets the abuses of Operation Choke Point (OCP), an Obama administration “enforcement” program that lumped together legal and illegal businesses into a “high risk” category and threatened the banks with intense regulatory scrutiny. The goal of OCP was to deter the banks from forming or continuing relationships with the targeted industries, thereby driving them out of business. Included on this list were firearm and ammunition sellers, many of whom found themselves struggling to find or keep banking relationships as a result of the program.

Rep. Luetkemeyer’s legislation would institute numerous reforms to bring more transparency and accountability to federal oversight of banks, all aimed at preventing the sort of unchecked enforcement discretion and twisting of legislative language at the heart of OCP.

For example, the bill would require regulators that suggest or order a bank to terminate a customer’s account to put the directive in writing, with reference to any specific laws or regulations the enforcement agency believed were being violated. Moreover, no such reason could be based solely on “reputational risk,” the supposed basis for including firearm and ammunition businesses within the scope of OCP’s “high risk” target list.

Regulating agencies would also have to submit annual reports to Congress documenting any such requests or orders. Finally, the Act would make important amendments to the Financial Institutions Reform, Recovery, and Enforcement Act of 1989, which agencies have cited as authorization for OCP, to clarify the law’s scope so as to conclusively preempt this dubious justification.

When he reintroduced the bill last year, Rep. Luetkemeyer published excerpts of a FDIC whistleblower’s letter, which help substantiate the illegitimate ends of OCP. The individual wrote:

I am an employee of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC). I was proud of my job and the FDIC’s mission before Operation Choke Point. During the past two years, however, we have been told to examine banks much more harshly, if they deal with a class of customers prohibited by Choke Point.

Predictability, the White House is already threatening to veto the legislation if it reaches the president’s desk.

Markets hold breath as China's shadow banking grinds to a halt

◼ Fresh loans in China’s shadow banking system evaporated to almost nothing from $160bn in January - Ambrose Evans-Pritchard/Telegraph (AFP image)

A slew of shockingly weak data from China and Japan has led to a sharp sell-off in Asian stock markets and the biggest one-day crash in iron ore prices since the Lehman crisis, calling into question the strength of the global recovery.

...Fresh loans in China’s shadow banking system evaporated to almost nothing from $160bn in January, suggesting the clampdown on the $8 trillion sector is biting hard.

“It seems that rising default risk has started to erode Chinese investors’ confidence,” said Wei Yao, from Societe Generale. “Together with continued regulatory tightening on banks’ off-balance-sheet activity, we are certain this slowing credit trend has further to go and will inflict real pain on the economy.”...

Despite new evidence the Community Reinvestment Act led to riskier lending and played a key role in the subprime mortgage crisis, the Obama administration is broadening the anti-redlining regulation´s authority and scope, spooking bankers.

◼ Clinton Added Teeth To CRA, Obama Turned Them Into Fangs - IBD

Through executive orders, Clinton set strict numerical lending targets for banks in "underserved" neighborhoods, while ordering regulators to crack down on alleged bank redlining.

The new rules for the first time mandated that banks use "innovative" or "flexible underwriting practices." Compliance required banks to pass a heavily weighted "lending test" or suffer holds on expansion plans.

The CRA overhaul "has been a disaster," said ex-BB&T CEO John Allison in his recent book on the financial crisis. He argued it's forced "banks to participate in making high-risk housing loans to low-income buyers who would not meet traditional bank lending standards."

Added Allison, who now heads the Cato Institute: "The default rates on these low-income loans are extraordinarily high."

..."DOJ wants banks to have a physical presence in the inner city," Washington-based Buckley Sandler LLP recently told clients, adding that "banks should carefully monitor loan data to determine whether an appropriate volume of loan originations emanate from minority areas."

As one of the "official hit-men" for Barack Obama, DWS often describes the GOP as beholden to Wall Street and big banking. But she never talks about this list below that details her donors from investment firms, Wall Street Consultants, and Banks.

◼ Who Owns Debbie Wasserman Schultz? - Yid With Lid

Despite her Florida district she gets her campaign donations from some very national sources, making this observer wonder just who owns Debbie Wasserman Schultz? The analysis (at the link) looks at the top 100 donors to the DNC Chair's campaign and her PAC (many donors donated to both). All of the data comes from opensecrets.org, and covers her donations after the 2010 campaign.

...If you live in DWS's district I hope you want a representative who is beholden to big labor, because over one-fifth of her money comes from labor sources. In the chart below the lines in yellow were donations made to Rep. Wasserman Schultz's PAC the ones in blue were made directly to her campaign....

This is where the unions and the Occupy movement and the academy all come together under one big anti-capitalist umbrella. Lerner, representing labor, says that the job of labor is to shut down business; Occupy says that its job is to smash the machines of capitalism; academia provides them the forum to recruit.

◼ EXCLUSIVE: SEIU HELPS OCCUPY ‘ABOLISH CAPITALISM’

Breitbart.com has received exclusive tape of an Occupy Strategy Session at New York University, billed as a group talk on “The Abolition of Capitalism.” One of the headline speakers at this session was Stephen Lerner, former leader and International Board Member of the SEIU and frequent Obama White House visitor. Lerner argued in favor of people not paying their mortgages and “occupying” their homes; he spoke in favor of invading annual shareholders meetings to shut them down. But his big goal was to get workers to shut down their workplaces. That’s where the SEIU agenda and the Occupy agenda truly meet: once workers begin to occupy.

"Acting without any legal authority, President Obama has overridden the federal charter of the Export-Import Bank, and turned it into a competitor for domestic loan business, in utter defiance of the law."

◼ Obama Perverts Ex-Im Bank into Competitor for Domestic Banks - John F. Di Leo/American Thinker

Hardly anyone has noticed or seems to care. Speaking at a Boeing assembly plant in Everett, Washington Friday, President Barack Obama announced a bold new plan to help American exporters: he would broaden the services of the Ex-Im Bank to help grow our exports.

Now, that sounds good on the face of it. The Ex-Im Bank is chartered as an export-funding source with a very narrow, specific charter. It exists in an odd area of commerce that requires some background. (read here)

He has announced that he will break with 80 years of history and a clear bank charter to direct the Ex-Im Bank to provide loans for domestic (USA-to-USA) sales if a foreign government might offer export financing to the manufacturer's foreign competitors. They all do! By definition, export financing agencies abroad provide this service on their international sales; it's not normally restricted by industry or product. The American banking industry can provide sufficient financing for a domestic company to compete with a more costly foreign import (for which you have transportation, duties, and other import costs as well, presumably making the importation undesirable).

He has also announced that he will order the Ex-Im Bank to begin making short-term financing loans of six to twelve months -- not necessarily connected to any export sales! -- to small domestic firms who want to increase their exporting activity. That's so open-ended, it can mean anything and include any company. Not that there's anything wrong with loans to small businesses; it's just that this is not the job of the Ex-Im Bank. Short-term loans to domestic businesses are for normal domestic banks to offer; that's what the business department of every bank in the country is for!

...This administration is making a habit of directing government agencies to change their very jobs without congressional authority. The military isn't there to fight wars, but perhaps to help with disaster assistance. The Department of Education is to issue guidelines on children's diets. NASA is to stop flying into outer space, and instead is to propagandize about the scientific contributions of Islam through the ages. The Department of Energy is to thwart energy independence by denying permits that would produce domestic energy.

And now the Export-Import Bank is to loan money to domestic customers engaging in domestic transactions.

This administration is abusing government, by using agencies for purposes other than their constitutional or statutory functions. This government by executive fiat grows ever more random, ever more disconnected from the reality of the legislation that chartered these departments and agencies as they wander ever farther afield.

"Due to the rising cost of payment card acceptance, we kindly ask you to pay with cash—especially for purchases under $10"

◼ Debit-Fee Cap Has Nasty Side Effect - Robin Sidel, Wall Street Journal

A new law that was supposed to reduce costs for merchants that accept debit cards has instead sent Mr. Scherr's monthly processing bills much higher and forced him to reassess the way he does business.

"My choice is to raise prices, discount for cash or get an ATM," says Mr. Scherr, a lawyer who has been in the coffee-shop business for more than a decade.

Just two months after one of the most controversial parts of the Dodd-Frank financial-overhaul law was enacted, some merchants and consumers are starting to pay the price....

"There will be some unhappy parties, as there always is when the government gets in the way of the free-market system," says Chris McWilton, president of U.S. markets for MasterCard Inc. He said the company decided that it couldn't sustain the discounts under the new rate model because the old rates had essentially subsidized the small-ticket discounts.

Mayor Bloomberg to #OccupyWallStreet: Blame Congress, Not Banks

Bloomberg: Protesters Should Stop Looking For Villains: MyFoxNY.com

“I hear your complaints,” Bloomberg said at a business breakfast held in midtown New York.

“Some of them are totally unfounded. It was not the banks that created the mortgage crisis. It was, plain and simple, Congress who forced everybody to go and give mortgages to people who were on the cusp,” Capital New York reports Bloomberg saying. h/t: The Blaze

An entire system of global trade is at risk

◼ Next month’s G20 summit must go beyond the usual rhetoric. Confidence in the eurozone’s banking system has to be restored through recapitalisation of its banks. - the Telegraph

(I)t seems appropriate to quote Winston Churchill: “Want of foresight, unwillingness to act when action would be simple and effective, lack of clear thinking, confusions of counsel, until the emergency comes, until self-preservation strikes its jarring gong – these are the features that constitute the endless repetition of history.”

We are at just such a moment again. Little more than two years ago, global leaders were happily congratulating themselves on having avoided the mistakes of the 1930s, thereby averting a depression. But now it appears that the difficulties of 2008 were but a foretaste of what was to come. With the European banking system again on the verge of collapse, there is a sense that politicians and economists are out of options, that governments and central banks are powerless before events. The best of the cavalry has been sent into battle, and it has come back in tatters. The fiscal armoury has been exhausted, the support offered by the boom in emerging markets such as China and India over the past two years seems to be on its last legs, and there is but the small rifle fire of the central bank printing presses left to defend us.... Read the rest.